Drought

I´m learning to read and write and I like to do it on my own. All help is very welcome

Dear Fran,

it infuriates me that the meteorologists say we enjoy a ‘good weather’ when they want to say it is not going to rain, when the water restrictions are carrying out in many villages.

This is not only a dry country, this country is parched. At the end of November the region reaches 27ºC and nothing presages that it is going to rain; on the contrary there is a trickle of camper vans in search of the beaches of Huelva and Portugal. Lashings of pink Dutch, English and German are right now relaxing outside a coast bar drinking a frothy beer.

In our native country the sun is a blessing but not here. At least one summer so long and so extreme: the tap water is cut from 10pm to 7am every night. Both the Tinto and the Odiel are two thin streams with several ponds where it must have a few fishes fighting for a bit of oxygen.

My señora says she had not seen this in all her life. Long years ago, when she was a girl, she could not come out on the common to play because of the rain and this happened every after day.

What is happening then?

At the end of November the tibis (peewits) have no arrived. The scandalous trumpeting calls of the common cranes has not heard yet; and those flocks making a ‘V’ in the sky are delaying a fair amount recently. It is clear that weather is changing and the arrival of many birds comes early in spring and some species like swallows are beginning to stay the winter in Spain.

I would like to know if in the land where I was born and lived is happening the same because I have heard that there are bee-eaters breeding in a quarry in Cumbria.

The weather is good. The weather is good. Please, before you say it you might think we have not water enough for our daily activities. The wells are completely dry and if one of them has water you cannot drink it because of the contamination.

Here, where we live, that it does not rain is not good news.

Y. a.

Mary