Properly Into Autumn

October/November. A time of year when we expect our rain to arrive, and indeed it did, a couple of days at first with a break of about a week, then followed by more rainy days and so on until towards the end of this month when things should dry up again and the sun should come back until February/March time when we have our second rainy spell. It is during these two periods that we get the vast bulk of our annual water supply and so in this neck of the woods clouds, wind and rain are a welcome change. As I say though, there are also dry days interspersed and this year I have been fortunate with two of them. Last weekend was the auction for Pablo. Wednesday was iffy, Thursday and Friday prolonged rain took over, leaving me anxious that the weather would dissuade people from turning out. But Saturday dawned bright, dry and sunny and stayed that way all day. Then the weather dipped again coming into last week. Thursday was my birthday and we wanted to go to our favourite restaurant, El Mirador, to celebrate. The trouble is that it is right up at the top of the village up a couple of steep, stepped streets which can readily turn into waterfalls, which they did four years ago so that we ate in a very quiet restaurant, our jeans soaked all the way up to the thighs - and then had to descend the waterfall to get home. So this year we decided that we had better choose somewhere down in the centre of the village. Anyway, Thursday was a lovely day and as the afternoon unfolded, showed no sign of changing. A quick phone call confirmed that there was a table available and so it was off up the steps to sit out on the terrace looking all the way down the valley to the sea, eating wonderful food accompanied by a very good bottle of wine - a gift from Rafael. In case you can find it locally, it was a Ribero del Duero, Pagos de Carraovejas, 2009 Crianza, almost entirely tempranillo (or Tinto del Pais, as it is called in that region) with just a little cabernet sauvignon to balance it. Oh, I do like living here.