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Mar 15 - A Very Llanito Winter

By Stefano Blanca Sciacaluga

We’ve now entered what I think is our fourth week of rain. I don’t think we’ve ever had more than a week and a half of rain, so this is unexplored territory for the average Llanito. I wake up every morning and look at my iPhone’s weather app, get up out of bed, have a shower, get dressed and head out to brave the rain. The first time was okay, second and third were a bit annoying, now I just have a bag with another change of clothes ready to go, like I’m pregnant and super close to giving birth.

Now, I’m not a big fan of the rain, never have been; but having recently invested in some water-resistant shoes I haven’t minded it that much lately. Of course, three or four weeks of non-stop rain is a different story. I’m tired of my hair getting disgusting with rain water, jumping over puddles, race walking to places whilst it’s stopped for five minutes, and having everything getting wet, from clothes to my phone to floors indoors. I already wasn’t fond of these shoes or my stupid umbrella, but having to use them all the time is getting a bit too much.

Trust me when I say, what this has shown me is that there’s no place like home. I mean, there are probably places out there where it just never rains, but I wouldn’t trade Gibraltar for say the UK, or anywhere else where I wouldn’t be able to wear anything I want and walk around without being worried of getting soaked. These three or four weeks have also given me plenty of time to reflect on the rain, on all the rains, from the beginning of time to now. OK, maybe from what I remember in my lifetime (year before last until now), and so I’ve compiled a list of the five different types of rain we experience here in Gibraltar, from mildest, to wildest:

Lluvia Malaje or Lluvia inglesa

If you’ve ever lived in the UK you’ll know this one extremely well. It’s the rarest of all the rains in Gibraltar, because as you know: When it rains, it rains. This is the kind of rain that won’t get you soaked, but it will get you annoyed. A fine mist-like spray that is pointless to open an umbrella for, but will wet your face and make it cold. It even feels pointless to put a hood on but it’s annoying to have the spray on your eyes. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does it’s worse than real, full-on rain, trust me.

Lluvia Normal

This one’s pretty rare too. This is when it rains and it’s normal. Let me explain: Lluvia Normal is a regular rain, without wind, mild, you could even get away with wearing Vans, Converse or Superga or whatever you put on your nasty feet, without getting your feet soaked. You can use an umbrella, which means you will get to places mostly dry, and the Gibraltar sewage system can take this one on, so you won’t have to jump over puddles. This is a 10/10 rain as far as rains are concerned. These don’t just happen in Winter, they also happen in the middle of summer when we have freak rain for a minute, and it stinks.

No se puede ni abrir el paraguas

There’s a significant step up between these two types of rain. In the first you’re fine, in the second you’re probably not at all. This is the kind of rain that if you get hit by it anywhere in the reclamation area you’re losing your umbrella. This rain doesn’t care if you have a super fancy storm-grade umbrella, it’ll laugh in your face, bend your umbrella and make you cry if you even try to step outside anywhere near McDonald’s. This is an interesting one, because it’s what we get a few times a year: Levantaso, vientaso y por saco los paraguas. O nunca mejor dicho, a tomar viento. But then again chances are it’ll be here and gone in two days, and just as you walk into your house, soaking wet with no umbrella and amargao perdio you see the sun has come out and it’s a beautiful day out. But don’t let it trick you, no saques la ropa porque enfin...aguita. It’s like a flu, a few days down and then we’re back to being the tropical paradise English people think we are.

Madre mía la que está cayendo

In this one there is no escape. Even your calzoncillos get wet. It’s the only time when walking around with no underwear is a perk. Umbrella? Forgedaboudit. Motorbike? Forgedaboudit. Walking? Forgedaboudit. Bus? Forgedaboudit. Even a raincoat is a Forgedaboudit, because water will somehow find its way through. It’s the kind of rain that will get you wet regardless of anything you might do to stop it. It’s impossible to get anywhere dry so you need to pack spare clothes. This is also the first type of rain where drivers in cars start to panic. Where they see everybody getting wet so they drive badly and faster as if they were getting wet themselves. It’s also the kind of rain that makes people in cars drive closer to the pavement than anything else, making sure to drive in those puddles. Especially when there are people walking (if you do this you’re an idiot).

In this type of weather you’re already considering buying wellington boots, as ugly as they may be, or alternatively disappearing off the face of the earth (into your quilt) until it’s all over. Office manager on speed dial. List of excuses in hand. This type truly sucks, the others are bearable but here it’s bad. It’s the kind of rain that you see in Casemates, where the rain is falling sideways and pushing a layer of water across the square. For this one you better have strong legs, because you’re jumping over all sorts of puddles as you realise how badly our roads are laid out and how much water collects in potholes and unlevelled pavements. High risk of stepping on a wobbly tile resting on a puddle, soaking your feet even more than they were.

When this rain happens Gibraltar goes into gridlock. People forget public transport even exists and mothers stop sending their precious children to school, in case they fly away over the water to Algeciras #scarystuff.

¡Coño!

The extreme. The worst weather ever - that actually happens more often than we like to admit. This kind of weather comes around every couple of years and we welcome it with the same surprise as England with the first three snowflakes every.single.winter (no planes, no trains, no buses, no school, no sense). This is the same kind of rain we had a couple of weeks ago when the government issued “Severe Weather Warnings”. For the record, I didn’t see the severity, but anyway, perhaps we got a little too excited. In any case, this kind of rain isn’t only falling hard, falling sideways and finding it’s way through your jacket, your clothes and straight into your soul, making you want to cancel everything and curl up into a ball in front of a fireplace; this rain is a total Shiva (the destroyer).

It’s also a bit unexpected, to be fair. I can’t remember ever having such serious ‘Severe Weather Warnings’; every other time things just get messed up. Because this kind of storm won’t just break your umbrella, make your children fly off to Algeciras to be taken away by the circus or make you fall into a puddle, this kind of storm will ruin your afternoon, your day, your week and half of Gibraltar. In this kind of storm Queensway gets flooded (as does half of the rest of Gibraltar’s roads and streets, including flooding on the ICC end of Main Street), all sizes of tree get uprooted, the water goes over the lighthouse to clean the windows of Europa Point Express, Calle Comedia becomes a whitewater river, a whole park has left us to become Ceuta’s new seaside park, closely followed by Sandy Bay’s Kokonut Bar, a huge boat crashes into the side of the rock and there are hundreds of videos doing the rounds on WhatsApp with people like “¡no veas la que está cayendo compa!”, “¡mira mira mira mira mira mira!”, “¡que heavy brada!”, “¡quillo que se lleva a mi abuela bro!”, “¡que basto ‘ompare!” and of course, “¡kinka el colega con la piragua, CRACK!”.

All of these situations are, of course, made even more absurd by not only how quick the weather can change completely, making us look stupid walking down a sunny Main Street in full-on waterproof gear with hair in a mess and squelchy feet, but more importantly how tourists come over completely unprepared, in summer clothes, angry and extremely disappointed that Gibraltar is not some tropical wonderland like they had been made believe by Damian in STA Travel Preston.

Pero bueno, después nos quejaremos de la calor.


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