In keeping with the annual Mallorcan weather pattern, we had some rain here yesterday in Felanitx. Hooray, at last. We had not seen any rain to speak of since last May.

It was a strange Summer this year in Mallorca. Instead of the usual dog days heat in August, we had four spells of extreme and sultry heat this year, starting as early as May, paired with an unusual degree of stifling humidity. I don’t think I have suffered from as much sweat as I have done this year, ever since we moved here twenty-two years ago. Even though the weather forcast promises us temperatures above 30° C from next Saturday, I would dare predict that within a week or ten days’ time we will have Autumn storms and heavy rains, even a gota fría, bringing with them an end to the Summer. Mark my words.

Yesterday’s tormenta (tempest) brought with it some 18,000 lightning bolts over the Balearic Islands, mostly out over the Mediterranean Sea, but quite a few of them also in the Tramuntana mountain range and a few hundred in the island centre, including over Felanitx.

The storm of thunder and lightning caused the electricity to go off, yet again. Power cuts are quite common in Mallorca. This time the power cuts were of a short duration, but here in Felanitx we had at least one dozen short spells of no light yesterday, all within an hour’s interval.

Somehow Spain is still a Third World country as far as infrastructure is concerned, or so it seems. You might even say, Spain is still a kind of a Banana Republic. Certainly here in Mallorca the availability of electricity, water, gas, sewage, postal services, telephone, TV and Internet is rather irregular and often very unreliable.

But one seems to get used to the island’s shortcomings after a while. I suppose that’s what makes a paradise just that.

The photo was taken in Felanitx, Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: August 26th, 2009. The time was 15:18:07.