When Life Gives You Lemons

You go hug them, of course. But first I was reminded that even here, in sunny València, winter actually does exist. And it has been present for the last couple of weeks, mainly because Filomena, the winter storm, has made her presence known in Europe, bringing massive amounts of snow to places like Madrid. Even here, in the Comunidad Valenciana, snow fell in most of the region, save the coastal areas. And that’s how we were saved from it, but temperatures did, in fact, drop to very low levels. I’m told it’s highly unusual to get to -1°C and that’s where we definitely ended up (I have proof). It may have been lower but I don’t make a habit of checking the weather app in the middle of the night. What I have started to do, however, is put an extra blanket on my bed and wear a long-sleeved sleep top (newly purchased) and my leisure pants … it really must be cold. Don’t forget that I’m also housed in a very old building, the walls of which are stone and very thick, which may be great to keep cool in the summer but in the winter the cold is a biting one. Fortunately we do have heaters in the bedrooms and that helps a lot.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, to find that on the same day the thermometer registered that -1°C, in the afternoon it was more like 15°C. (This reminded me of living through winter in Santiago, Chile, where routinely the temps were like this: very cold first thing in the morning and almost hot in the afternoon.) On this day, Sagrario and I had to go and run some errands (well, she did, I just tagged along). As is often the case, the way home was through Plaça de l’Ajuntament where we came across a very strange sight: massive yellow objects that looked awfully like giant lemons. Could they be lemons? As we got closer it became quite obvious that, indeed, they were lemons, decorated in various ways, as some sort of promotion for the Spanish lemon industry. I thought it was very creative and simply had to hug the one that asked to be hugged.

I also couldn’t resist having a photo taken with one of the many clock/temperature signs that dot the city. It was 15:22 (that’s 3:22pm) and the temperature was 15°C. I was very overdressed.