The worst thing about our current situation is that the forecasts are so contradictory. I’m getting messages from my friend Jutta, who’s checking the German app; someone just rushes by and quickly reports that two more storms are on their way; the IPMA (Portugal’s Metoffice) says it’s only going to be 15 km/h windy with a huge downpour…
This weather blows all meteorologists away
Only they’re blown away figuratively, and we’re blown away literally. We got an alert, of course, thank you government, very thoughtful, but we’d had one for Storm Ingrid too. And I slept right through it with my window (on the windward side) tilted open. Then her sister Kristin came, who was supposed to be passing by at 140 km/h, but apparently, they hadn’t reckoned with her bad mood!
Good heavens, that was a completely different story! I did go to sleep with the doors bolted, but with my window wide open, as usual, because there wasn’t even a breeze. Until the middle of the night, I found myself struggling in soaking wet slippers to close the door that had been smashed open. Luckily, there was something to block it properly, and Broes came to help, but after that, you don’t sleep very well anymore.
That might be my fault, because Broes tells me the next day: “I’m back in bed, I hear the roof tiles crashing on the sidewalk, and I think: That’s a nice job for Broes tomorrow.” How level-headed can you be?
He wasn’t blown away, thank God
A storm like that lasts a few hours, then all the available air is gone. Then there’s nothing left to move, and Kristin continued to howl somewhere else. The next morning at the inspection, I was shocked. Kristin had smashed open the side door of the big house, ripped out the ceiling of that room, touched the ceiling of the hallway and the adjacent rooms, and blown half the roof off.
I looked straight up at the sky from the hallway. Okay then … that wasn’t 140 km/h was it? I heard later from the mayor of Vinha da Rainha, who came by to check if everything was alright, that 208 km/h had been measured in Soure. Before the measuring instrument went up. We’re 14 km before Soure, so we took the full hit.
In that case, you might say, we were lucky. It could have been worse. The next day it was dry and almost windless, thank goodness. Broes and Marc managed to close the roof of the big house, using all the old roof tiles we had lying around, and a lot of plastic and foam. Mário and I patched the smaller holes in the hotel room roofs and the former reception area, and continued with the bathhouse roof, which was also completely ruined.
A long day, but we got it almost closed. We continued the next day. All the doors were blocked, all the wind-prone holes were closed, and then it started.
Waiting. Weather reports. News from friends and passersby. No power, no internet, just rain and wind. It takes a lot of energy to keep your roofs up and the water out by force of mind, let me tell you.
Meteorologists of the world, unite!
Those conflicting reports are killing you. You lie in bed, fully armed, waiting for the first thunder and lightning, but nothing happens. Or you’re completely unprepared for the next violent air movements and cloud-emptyings. So far, the German weather reports have proven to be the most reliable, by the way … punctual as always.
We’re almost two weeks in now. Everything in the bathhouse is on stones, but thankfully the water has gone down a bit. Last weekend, I lay on a couch somewhere with earplugs in and fully clothed, under a duvet, ready for …. for what? When it’s stormy, it’s best not to go outside and drive. By the way, I now know that an approaching car sounds the same as a gust of wind.
What a nervous wrecking situation
We can break down figuratively, but liturally speaking too!
But hey, on our way to better times. Looking for the silver linings. Broes is great in crises, a tower of strength. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen in the fall, because then you still have a whole winter ahead of you. Thankfully, we have power and internet again. A lot of people have been hit much harder, but you’ve probably already seen that on your news.
I’m not watching the news. Every minute, every day that it’s dry and windless is very welcome. And it’s not over yet ….
N.B. This is the blog post from last Sunday, February 8th, which didn’t upload on the right day. The blog post of the 1st of February is now also up. If you want to read the previous blog post, click on “previous blog post” below.
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(Disclaimer: I’m a bit tired of the keyword stuff and Google’s dictatorship. So here they are, and I’m also hoping for the cleverness of AI in this matter that it will still be found and read, but that I don’t have to force myself to use the right terms in the title and headings.#Kristin #storm #Portugal )
We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal. We started to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa.You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere.Since Covid we rent the houses for a longer period of time, not as holiday houses anymore.
Each week a little blog about what is happening around us. An easy read. A few minutes in another world. A little about what it going on in Portugal. If you plan your holiday to Portugal, it might be a nice preparation.
In the weekend we publish it on Bluesky, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.