Will there be a drought next year?

It’s been a touch damp recently.

I think I previously mentioned the Great Flood of Fuseta, only it wasn’t really a great flood, simply a big puddle, eminently passable in a car. The cause was probably a blocked drain.

Following on from the Great Flood, we had a few days of clear blue skies and sunshine. I managed to walk every day, swim every day, and I wore no more than shorts and a t-shirt each day. I was in my element.

And then Thursday arrived.

I woke up to rain and cloud, very low hanging cloud at that. So, low in fact that when I looked out of my window, I could only see the houses across the road. Behind them, there was zilch, nada, nothing but a grey blanket, instead of the usual hills in the distance.

I’d seen the warnings online, and been told by friends that it was going to be bad, and the rain was certainly heavy. But it wasn’t so heavy as to cause any problems, was it?

And then I saw the videos and photos springing up online: muddy flood waters cascading through the streets of Albufeira, ripping up the calçada pavements, flooding shops and other premises, making people’s lives a misery. There were also photos of water filling the road tunnel cum subway that sits by the railway station in Olhão. One of Olhão’s main thoroughfares was completely blocked.

The weather was definitely causing problems, not here in Fuseta necessarily, but certainly close by.

Come Friday morning, the torrential rain continued, and was accompanied by booming peals of thunder and flashes of lightning. I wasn’t happy. I’d ordered some pies from Bart, the Algarve Pie Guy, and needed to go and collect them.

I lay in bed, as the rain pelted my bedroom window, praying that the weather would break. Then my phone buzzed. It was a message from Nigel:

‘Ready for our walk?’

‘Bollocks to that!’ I thought, and told him so, soon realising that he was probably being sarcastic. Oh well.

And then, miracle of miracles, the rain stopped.

But I knew that it wouldn’t last long, so I got up and showered, sorted myself out, and headed out into the grey, damp morning. I had to get my pies, didn’t I?

I passed through the square, which was unsurprisingly fairly empty, and headed up towards the railway station. Ahead of me, I noticed that Tone was striding up the hill, too. As she approached Nanobrew, she turned to enter her house, saw me and stopped to chat. The weather was mentioned, obviously, just in time for the heavens to open once more. Bollocks. Tone headed inside, and I waited out the cloudburst under the cover of the entrance to Nanobrew. Shame the bar wasn’t open, really.

Once the rain had slowed somewhat, I pulled out my umbrella and went on my way. Heading past the station and down the road that leads to Bart’s house, I thought to myself that I could hardly call it a road anymore. Now it was no more than a dirt track, a mix of broken asphalt, gravel and sand. You could see where the rivers of rainwater had ploughed their way down towards the railway line. The local Câmara was going to have its road-mending budget severely stretched this year, I decided.

Inside, Bart’s house, a number of people were already waiting to collect their pies. I joined the queue, and also joined in the general conversation. Obviously, the weather came to the fore once more, and not just because of the incessant rain, but also because we were all British – and that’s what we British do. We love to talk about the weather.

One lady mentioned that her and her husband had only moved to the area five weeks ago. She added that she was rather put out, because they hadn’t signed up for this weather. It was very tongue in cheek. At least, I think it was.

I collected my pies, paid my money and headed home. By some miracle, it had stopped raining again, and it was nice just to be out. The only thing that ruined my walk home was when I nipped into the supermarket to buy some bread rolls, only to find that there weren’t any bread rolls, and that the management had completely changed the layout of the shop. Bloody hell, that was going to confuse the old ladies when they felt able to emerge from their homes once more.

When I got home, I stepped inside, took off my boots and sat down on the sofa – and just in time it would seem. A huge peal of thunder reverberated through me and the heavens opened once more.

I gave it a couple of minutes and then I went to the door and looked out. There was already a river running down the street, and water was bursting from drainpipes all around as it tried to escape from the rooftops. I noticed four seagulls standing on the roof of the mercado, beaks pointing into the onslaught, stoically waiting for the rain to stop. They must have been rock hard, those seagulls.

I watched for a while, taking a video for my Australian friend, and then closed the door on the hell that was outside. I sat down on my sofa once more, and checked my phone. There was a message from Nigel. He’d sent it forty minutes ago and I’d missed it:

‘Going soon to pick up my pies. Do you want me to pick up yours?’

That was nice of him, but a tad too late. I let him know that I’d already been, then noticed a message from his wife, Amy:

‘Dave, did you go with Nigel for the pies? Just wondering if he’s sheltering from the weather or heading back. Our track is a river!’

A river at home and, no doubt, a river down by Bart’s house. Nigel would be having fun.

It had been hammering it down for a while now, and I sort of hoped Nigel was sheltering from the rain somewhere. It certainly wasn’t nice weather to be driving in.

I sat there and simply listened to the thunder, which was accompanied by the thunderous drumming of the rain on the street outside, on the roofs of the buildings around me, and on the tarpaulin and portable toilet that were sat outside the house that was being renovated opposite. Bloody hell, those portable toilets aren’t half loud when it rains.

I then received another message from Nigel. It was a photograph, under which sat the single word:

‘Bugger.’

It was a photo of Nigel’s car, and it looked as though it was stuck in some mud somewhere. As Nigel went on to explain:

‘Took over an hour to dig it out. Going down our track, avoiding a deep pot hole, car just slipped off the track into liquid mud.’

What a bummer.

Nigel had sent this message to our WhatsApp group, and Max responded, offering some sympathy:

‘Shit. Roads are pretty bad after a deluge of rain. You must be knackered!’

Me, not so sympathetic:

‘It kept you busy anyway, Stu… something to do on a wet and grey afternoon…’

Having known each other for forty years, I presume he knows that I care really.

His response?

‘I could have done nothing and been cleaner…’

He then pointed out that according to his rain gauge, one-and-three-quarter inches of rain had fallen since this morning.

‘Not bad,’ I thought, ‘Not bad at all.’

Then Ben messaged me:

‘Shop flooded – joy!’

The Take Away store that he and his girlfriend, Gabriela, run had water running through it, courtesy of the Fuseta drainage system. Another bummer.

I was now beginning to realise that I really should show some sympathy:

‘Bloody hell… where did it come from? Through the front door? Need any help?’

‘Up the bloody drains! Thanks, but got it sorted.’

Well, that was something, anyway.

It meant that I could remain seated on my sofa, nice and dry. Bonus.

But there are still interesting times to come, apparently. As I sat on my sofa, I was also looking at Facebook (sad, I know), and someone mentioned that this weather system wasn’t over yet. At 2am tonight, there would be another bout of extremely heavy rain, which would coincide with a full moon and a high tide. Blimey, that didn’t sound good at all.

Fingers crossed, nothing comes of it.

And I suppose, after all this rain, the big question is:

‘Will there be a water shortage next year?’

I look to the heavens. I hate to say it, but it’s more than likely.