Weather woes

It's alarming how dramatically my mood changes depending on the weather.

Before my 2003 move to Spain I may very well have suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a type of depression that's related to changes in seasons.

As a child, before I grasped how long a winter or a month was, I used Easter as my marker for the summer countdown.

Once the chocolate bunnies were devoured I crossed off the days until our Mallorca summer holidays - a time when sun and outdoors living was guaranteed, a time when once again, I felt happy.

We aren't used to having to take a rain check for much here in Valencia. The ease with which barbeques and garden parties can be arranged because of the good weather is easy to take for granted.

Every few months a group of us get together for a paella party. Paella outside in the orange orchards, cooked over an orange wood open fire.

Rain just wouldn't do on this occasion and it had been raining nonstop for two days previously and we nearly cancelled it.

Luckily we had perfect sun all day, but how quick we are to moan about a few weeks of bad weather.When tucking into our rice dishes my expat British friends started talking about how dull it had been recently and how much the current weather reminded them of the UK. We revealed how we all knew from a very young age we would move to a warmer country.

The bad weather was back a few days after our paella meet. What do we expect when this year's summer carried on into the third week of September?

As gales blew, I realised the ' gota fría' had begun and that our long six months of beautiful summer would soon be washed away with the rains until next year.

I never feel sad about the end of summer in Spain because we have sun all year round and outdoors activities never stop. I adore the winter here too. The worst weather we have here is now; the 'gota fría'.

Gota fría is the name given to the weather phenomena in the Valencian region and literally means ' cold drop'. Rain clouds, sometimes measuring 10 km in height, build up incredibly quickly as the warm sea air rises and meets with cooler air from Northern Europe forming cumulus clouds.

When the thunder clouds become too heavy they unleash torrential rains, sometimes reaching 12 inches in only a few hours. So, a sunny day can transform into a deluge of rain and hailstones very suddenly.

I arrived in Spain in March 2003. That summer was the hottest on record for 50 years and subsequently we experienced an extreme gota fría. The weather gods were very punctual that year. I remember on the first day of September the sky caved in and the rain didn't stop for a week. Valencia was put on a weather warning.

I lived in a house in the country and watched the ominous clouds roll over the hills before spilling their darkness onto our house making us house bound for a week.

Now living in an apartment it's funny to see how sudden rain brings a town to a standstill. In a town you can watch the hustle and bustle of people's daily routine come to an abrupt end.

Mummies sheltered their children under their coats and in shop doorways. Old folk scampered to the windows pressing their noses up against the watery glass like kids do to catch the action.

I race to different windows in the flat for contrasting views of the skyline and chaos in the streets. I notice that mysterious and excited expression etched on their faces, half smiling in wonderment and curiosity. There's something enchanting about storms and the power they have over us.

You see, storms do something to people and for a few moments that change cannot be denied. Storms make us reach for the duvet and snuggle into the sofa or prepare a cup of hot chocolate we forgot we had. Storms give me that Van Morrison, Sunday evening feeling.

I always feel relief and disappointment when a storm ends. Following a storm everything is clean and calm again. After a storm in Spain the sun hugs you fiercely again, it never abandons us for long.