No sooner had we bought our jacuzzi and installed it in its special corner of the roof terrace than notices went up all over the village informing us that the water company for the region had finally managed to get us included in the drought order (the village that is; not the two of us as a couple.) which applies to the rest of this area, the Axarquía. One consequence is that mains water cannot be used to fill pools. For other towns and villages it's understandable as the rains have never properly arrived for about five years and so local reservoirs were perilously low. Lake Viñuela, from which Frigiliana draws a little of its water had fallen to only 16% of capacity.
That shouldn't be a problem for our village, however. The bulk of our water comes from the mountains behind us. These start out in life as the Sierra Nevada, with Mulhacén being the highest peak in the Iberian Peninsula. The Sierra is a huge lump of dolomite limestone topped off with a thick coating of snow for around eight months of the year, snow which slowly percolates down into this giant sponge, emerging as numerous springs when it finally reaches the clay base. So many of the springs arise around the village that for centuries the people of Frigiliana were known as "Los aguanosos", the watery ones, by the rest of the Axarquía.
Finally, though, the proper seasonal rains would appear to have arrived. We've had substantial rainfalls on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday night, yesterday evening and today. It's not a scientifically accurate measure, but the bucket out on the terrace, which was empty at the weekend, now has 5 inches of water in it. On that basis Lake Viñuela should be filling up nicely, and when the water in the jacuzzi needs changing in April, we should be free to get on with it. Fingers crossed!
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