Deja vu

Disaster! We are woken by thunder and heavy rain. Mel checks the weather forecast and rain is predicted for the next three days. This is not good news. But on the plus side, Alex’s reluctance to leave the pool yesterday left him a little pink so at least we won’t have to worry about sunburn.

Mel is determined to be optimistic: these are “clearing up” showers … but come lunchtime it still hasn’t really cleared up and although it’s warm the black clouds persist. There’s worse news from work – there’s a problem with email that Simon needs to solve and that’s not going well either. We hang around while he endeavours to sort that out but by 3pm neither email nor weather have improved. We resolve to set off for Ibiza town come rain or shine, and with or without Simon. Last time we visited Ibiza – as a stop on a cruise – it also rained all day, so at least we’re consistent!

A breakthrough occurs in both senses and we finally leave the villa around 3.30 and arrive in Ibiza town to sunshine. After an abortive attempt to find a reasonably priced restaurant in the old town, we return to the port area and have a late lunch of pizza, pasta and salad. The kids buy snap-backs at a shop around the corner and then we return to explore the old town –this time mainly in the sunshine. We stop to buy frozen yoghurts at a place opposite the restaurant where we had lunch and the heavens open again. We make our way back to the car, stopping to shelter from the rain along the way.

We had seen a large supermarket on the way into town and decide to stop there for groceries. We emerge to find a thunderstorm of quite epic proportions underway. The drive back to Santa Eularia is brief but eventful – the lightning is almost constant and at one stage the rain falls so fast that the windscreen wipers can’t keep up. Simon does a sterling job getting us home in one piece but when we arrive the electric gate wouldn’t open – the power is out. It turns out to be a problem which affects only our villa; Alex solves it by remembering what Christine told us to do if the power tripped out.

We had been planning a barbeque but our kindling is damp, and so is pretty much everything else. After an abortive attempt to light the barbeque we resort to using griddles on the indoor hob. The food turns out OK and the rain finally stops, although the thunder continues to grumble. It’s much cooler, too. Let’s hope that the storm has passed and we can enjoy fine weather for the rest of the week – the weather forecasts suggest otherwise, though.