Can someone turn up the heat please?

Can someone turn up the heat in Ibiza please? I’ve been writing numerous blogs, feature articles and social media posts of late singing the island’s praises for its sun-drenched, high temp winter and, errr, this week it feels like Ibiza just didn’t get the memo. The weather is proving me wrong. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, it’s really, really cold. And grey. And wet. And windy. Apologies for being smug in my previous blogs. I feel like I may have brought this cold snap on myself.

In all seriousness, I know the sudden drop from 20 degrees Celcius to 10 is nothing in comparison to the bitter early winters of London, New York or Berlin, but bear with me. For islanders like me who have been wearing summer clothes and flip-flops up until just seven days ago, this is a bit of a culture shock. There was no transition with tights, scarves, long sleeved tops and layers easing you into the winter wardrobe – it was more like BAM! Coat! Woolly socks! Chunky scarf! Ugg boots! Didn’t I tell you just recently we only have two seasons here? From summer to winter, overnight. The beauty of these cold bursts in Ibiza is that they don’t tend to last too long. A week of rain here, a few days of icy winds there, some cool foggy mornings, or an afternoon of overcast skies and then it’s back to the blissful winter sunshine. And rainbows! Let’s not forget the rainbows – did anyone else see the flurry of Facebook posts when we had a double rainbow last week? It’s like we have nothing to talk about except the weather here in the off-season (ahem). But I digress… back to the weather! The funny thing about these mini pockets of bad weather is it throws our lives and schedules into complete havoc, despite years of experience and many winters lived on the island. Every year it’s the same thing. Smugness followed by confusion. And for those newbies, settling in for their first Ibiza winter it’s a total shock – I’ve been asked ‘Is this normal?’ more than once this week by our newest White Ibiza recruits. I assure them the good days are just around the corner…

What happens is we’re (and when I say we, I mostly mean me) reminded of that leak in the ceiling we never got around to fixing last year (because the rainy season was so short, it just dried up and we forgot), and once again we’re plugging it up with towels and hoping for the best. We hit the hardware stores in desperate need of dehumidifiers to cure the damp in our old Dalt Vila apartments or ancient countryside fincas only to discover they are dramatically overpriced on the island because there’s such a big market for them – thank goodness for the competitive prices of Amazon and its free delivery options! And after we finally get ourselves a dehumidifier, we remember that the electricity in our aforementioned abodes can’t cope with having three heaters, a dehumidifier, the laptop TV and the washing machine all on at the same time. Unless of course you’re lucky enough to live in a beautiful new villa or apartment with luxe underfloor heating with all the mod cons and a big fireplace… and then you discover that all of a sudden your less fortunate friends want to spend a whole lot of time hanging out with you. At your place. Obvs. We find there’s no time to drop our winter coats (that have been sitting in a pile of clothes that need alterations all summer but we were too busy) off at the tailor to have those missing buttons sewn on because it’s simply turned too cold overnight to go without them. We realise there’s no easy way to navigate muddy caminos between our cars to houses. We buy umbrellas from the bargain stores in emergencies and then soggily sigh as they’re whipped inside out by the wind in an instant. We toss them unceremoniously in the trash, as we did with their brothers and sisters last winter and think, must remember to buy a decent brolley soon…

But there are other things we’re once again reminded of that make all these little inconveniences so worthwhile. We watch the island turn back into a lush, green paradise, after finally receiving the rainfall it’s been craving. We see those dark, moody skies create dramatic deep purple sunsets over the horizon. We seek shelter inside some amazing Ibiza locations, where the big old wood fires are crackling and the most simple grilled Mediterranean meats and red wine give us the ultimate in comfort eating experiences. We realise it’s actually really pleasant to step inside a hot yoga studio in comparison to being outdoors. We embrace the art of cocooning complete with Netflix (finally!) and our winter duvets. We spend hours on Pinterest, looking for soup recipes – possibly longer than we spend cooking and eating them. We embrace these moments and feelings because we know that in a few days the sun will be back and we’ll be out and about again enjoying the island’s winter vibes. We whinge and we moan (and once again, when I say we, I mostly mean me) but we secretly love it. I for one wouldn’t want to spend my winters anywhere else.