Orange Alert!

Excitement on Friday 14th when the communications man turned up to sort out the intercom! We have been trying to have this done for five years, being given wrong information all along the way. and even bringing over (useless) a handset from UK. Getting it done now was a linguistic challenge and also meant we missed the best beach opportunity of the week, but afterwards we celebrated!

So it was on Sunday that we got to the beach and the wind was quite strong and from the East. We used the shelter and had a pleasant afternoon, followed by cooking our first ever Sunday roast - meat purchased by showing a diagram of butchers' cuts as they are different over here!

Then on Monday we heard on the radio that all of the Canaries were on orange alert for the next few days as severe weather was expected. Outside it seemed OK except for an unusual wind direction. Through Tuesday it became darker and colder. Gran Canaria and Tenerife suffered torrential rain, with the less significant island of El Hierro (furthest Weast) having over 70 litres per sq metre. All schools in the archipelago were closed. Finally at about 6.30 it was our turn! Completely silent but constant heavy rain! We raided the freezer, battened down the hatches and watched an old comedy video as the satellite signal was lost.

Chloe was due to arrive on Wednesday and the alert was still in force. Fortunately she was on a later flight and not the one diverted in the morning. She and the pheasants landed on time!