Damp! And clouds!

I was pretty sure it was raining before I even opened the blinds this morning. There is a particular swish of car tyres on tarmac that is instantly recognisable. But there was no sound of rain. No, it was that soft drizzle that Galicia does so well and the dampness in the air that results from the clouds coming down to sea level.

I always find this thing with the clouds very curious. Years ago we spent an Easter holiday in a place in the hills/mountains of Almería. About half an hour's drive from the small town of Cómpeta, the chalet was so difficult of access that we had to hire a four by four to drive down the steep track to reach it. If we went into town to eat, whoever was driving consumed no alcohol whatsoever as the drive home was so scary. In the mornings we would wake to sunshine on the hilltop and look down on cloud at various points lower down the slope. But these were wispy bits of cloud and, besides, somehow you expected such things in the mountains.

The cloud we look down on from our seventh floor flat (really nineth or tenth if you also count the floors of offices) is like rolls of cottonwool. It's as if the stuff the plane descends through as it comes down to land has just dropped to sea level. And it moves around so that landmarks are hidden and then revealed as the cottonwool roll squirms around obstacles. When we first came and lived two years in Vigo we didn't see this phenomenon. Or maybe we just didn't notice. It feels like a more recent devlopment.

We certainly experienced the sea mist advancing off the Atlantic on a memorable occasion when we took our daughter and her children out on a trip to the Islas Cíes. We watched from the main island as the other islands and distant Vigo gradually disappeared. Our eldest granddaughter, then about 12, was rather worried that the boat might not find its way back to Vigo harbour.

This cloud-drop mist/fog/rain is a different kind of phenomenon though and one that we have seen increasingly in the years that we have rented this flat near the Teis end of the city. Another curious effect of that non-existent climate change. And all rather different from the swelteringly hot weather that we had over the weekend.

Taking advantage of the cooler (but still pleasant) weather yesterday we took ourselves off for a stomp along the coastal path around the A Guía promontory, a product of EU funding. A very fine walkway, with steep rocks on one side and eucalyptus trees on the other, it offers occasional splendid views of the bay. And it always has us thinking about health and safety factors at points where it runs directly alongside a steep wooded slope overlooking the sea. If this were the UK, we think to ourselves, there would be a sturdy fence here! But this is a another country!

On our way back, walking through the backroads of Teis, we spotted a family group ahead, the small boys equipped with fine straw hats. Something in the demeanour said British. Well, we had to speed up just a little to check if our suspicions were correct. The women in the group could have been of almost any nationality but the father and the boys seemed distinctly English. And so it turned out. The boys with their pale but freckled faces said it all.

The father tall and tanned, weatherbeaten even, told us that they had a boat in the Teis marina, the puerto deportivo. (As we had passed it we remarked on the millions of pounds worth of boats moored there and the income presumably generated for the area. The protestors should think of that sometimes.)

The English family had sailed here from England and were visiting a relative who appeared to live here, or at any rate who knew Teis well. Now, I bet they know a thing or two about sea mist and fog and general variations in weather!