Until recently Lanzarote was famous for its aridity but November changed all that. We had our first proper rain for nine years and spectacularly the dormant plants and flowers erupted (excuse the pun) into all nature´s finest.
Those tourists lucky enough to be staying with us, www.real-lanzarote.com in the north of the island were treated to a dazzling array of colour and spring excitement. The rabbits were leaping (or were they hares), the hedgehogs were rattling around, sniffing at the hedgerows (is that why they are called hedgehogs?) and the male goats were eyeing up the ewes in that charmless, black-eyed way.
And, once the rains got going, they continued for a few weeks keeping the daisies and poppys happy and erect. The Goats too but aren´t they always?
Of course this rain disturbance to the usual sunny and mild weather caused havoc with the houses which are not built for European-type downpours so flooding became the norm.
Buckets, hoses (those that weren´t brittle through lack of use) and thick ropes (laid in the roads), were found to divert the rivers of water flowing through the villages into the aljibes (wells), which all Canarian houses have.
The benefits were many and various, free water from him upstairs, gardens were watered, palm trees revived and the potatoes, cabbages, peas, lentils etc were bursting with flavour.
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