At last, it's rained!

At last we've had some autumn rains ranging from - on Thursday afternoon - an all-out thunder and lightning 'event' as the weather forecasters seem to call these things nowadays,  to a grey drizzley day yesterday and then over lunchtime today the rain came again, and the wind blew loads of leaves, remaining almonds and dead bunches of grapes down.

We raked up the leaves and put them in the compost, Monty and Pip tried to eat all the dried grapes before I got to them  for the compost,  we collected the almonds that we'd not been able to reach when we harvested - much easier picking them up off the ground - and then checked the forecast to see what else is coming our way.

It looks like it might be time to batten down the hatches at least for tomorrow and maybe later in the week as well as there is more on the way.  But it's the first rain that we can remember since the start of June and that was such a small shower that it was over and done with without really wetting anything.

John was passing the Ayuntamiento in Mecina Bombaron last week and stopped in to ask about the permissions for having bonfires.  They usually run from the start of November till the end of April - depending on the weather conditions.  This year they said the medio ambiente won't come to do the permits till after it's rained,  which  day of the week do they come?  when it's rained.

So now it has rained, but we don't know if it's enough for the  permits to be issued.  Next time we're passing by we'll take last years permit and leave it there to be re-issued and collected later.   It'll be olive pruning time soon and we want to burn the trimmings.  They take a long time to rot down in the compost even after going through the shredder and being layered with other fruit and veg waste, so alternate years we burn and add the ash instead.

Of course, along with rain comes a drop in temperature.  So off with the summer bed cover - a cotton throwover, and on with the heavier cosy bedding.  The rugs have come out of their bags and are down on the floors - the tiled floors suddenly get cold and once that happens they won't warm up till next year.  The wood burners are laid ready for lighting,  scones and jam for elevenses  yesterday and a rice pudding in the slow cooker for tonight.

And next weekend the clocks change - autumn is here!