It never rains but it pours.
You want to see that old chestnut verified? Come to the charming Spanish province of Valencia. Where we live.
Just a week ago, we were out hiking through the rice-growing area of the Albufera. It was shirt-sleeve weather. Practically sun-block conditions. Which we’re still not used to in late November, up here in the northern Hemisphere, when you’d expect grey skies and biting cold at this time of year.
Shirtsleeve weather in the Albufera less than a week ago |
The Valencia region: green despite the warmth |
Not raining but pouring The view from our front door this morning |
Especially as it really is a storm. Accompanied, as it generally is, by lightning and thunder, the latter often extremely loud. Valencia is the city whose main festival, the Fallas, is principally concerned, as far as I can tell, with letting off tons of firecrackers. That would be irritating enough if it were only the usual small things most of us think of as firecrackers, but the diabolical Fallas-fans have come up with a type of firecracker which is about the size and shape of a stick of dynamite. Obviously, it doesn’t create the explosion of a stick of dynamite, but the noise it makes compares to an ordinary firecracker a bit like heavy artillery compares to a child’s cap gun.
So maybe I shouldn’t be particularly surprised by the noise of Valencian thunder.
Not that we particularly worry about it. Sadly, however, we have one member of the household who has lately become extremely sensitive to it. I don’t know why. Her pal takes it all in her stride, and she used to too. But not recently.
I first noticed her change in feeling to such loud noise when I was out for a walk with her the other day. There was a sound of shotguns being fired, quite a long way off, but even that startled her. She was in the middle of what we euphemistically refer to as “her business” when this happened, and she stopped dead. She took a look at me to see how I’d reacted, so I composed my expression into one of complete tranquillity, and my posture into utter indifference, as I’ve been trained to do, and that seemed to reassure her a little.
She found herself another spot to carry on with her business.
You’ll have guessed by this point that I’m not talking about a human. No, this is Toffee, our toffee-coloured toy poodle. She’s been in a bad way today, as the thunder thunders around the place. While her friend, the black poodle Luci, just takes it all in her stride.
At one point, she started to dart upstairs, perhaps thinking that in a bedroom, generally a safe place in her view of the world, she would be in a refuge from the noise. But then she realised that she was going to be on her own up there, and solitude in such conditions was just not to be borne. So she sat on a stair trembling. And looking at us pitifully.
After all, she’s a very little dog.
Toffee, not happy about the thunder Please make it stop... |
Comforted at last |
Toffee will feel a lot better for that.
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