Writing about the weather. Again.

You see, when you live in Ibiza all year round, the weather makes for a pretty inspiring topic or ten. It goes through phases of being gloriously sunny, baking hot, freezing but clear, crazy windy, ridiculously humid or my personal favourite, pouring rain, and then gloriously sunny all over again. It’s very very rarely grim and grey. One thing I can say for the weather in Ibiza is that no matter what mood it’s in, it’s generally putting a show. The sun doesn’t just shine here – it blazes down in all its glory. It emits a soft, warm, golden glow just before sunset. It doesn’t really ever drizzle – we have biblical storms, complete with scary thunder and dramatic lightning followed by fairytale rainbows (and yes, even the occasional double rainbow). It hails golf ball sized chunks of silvery ice. When it’s windy, it feels like a cyclone with everyone’s roof terrace furniture almost flying over their balcony railings, Wizard of Oz style. And on the rarest of rare occasions, we even get a pitiful, sad little amount of snow. All the more reason to write about it, my dears!

The weather in Ibiza is usually the most common conversation starter on any given day. No matter how long you’ve known someone – client, friend, boyfriend, family member, corner shop owner – they’ll always comment on the weather when they first see you. It’s like a habit we all have – instead of the typical: ‘How are you?’ followed by ‘Fine, thanks’ of our overly polite modern society, Ibiza dwellers take a more meteorological approach to small talk. ‘Did you hear it snowed in San Carlos?’ after those aforementioned rare snowfalls. ‘It looks like summer has finally arrived.’ following a three-day spell of rain in April. ‘This must be the coldest year in ten years!’ after having to keep the heater on at night in March. ‘The weather is amazing! I’ve just been sunbathing on Salinas.’ heard in January. The list goes on. So today, when I was wondering what to write a blog about, I thought I would ask around and see if there were any recurring Ibiza themes that people wanted to hear about. And well, wouldn’t you know it… the weather was the most the one that just kept coming up! I personally wondered whether people were bored about reading about the weather in Ibiza by now? I mean, we’re hardly unique – you can find sun, rain, clouds, blue skies, hail, snow and humidity all over the world. But as I said earlier, there’s just something about the way the weather happens in Ibiza that’s different from anywhere else. There’s no such thing as just another day here. Every day, in its own way, is spectacular.

The requests for weather report style blogs got me to thinking. Why are people so interested in reading about the weather in Ibiza? And then, it hit me. If you’re sitting at your desk somewhere else around the world – whether that place is grey, rainy, sunny or snowing – and daydreaming about Ibiza, you want to be in the know about what’s happening here. Ibiza represents ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ to so many people – if you know that the sun continues to shine here, then everything’s going to be alright when you make it back here someday. And then… on those days when Ibiza is raining and cold and the locals are behaving as if it were a blizzard, well, you can read about it and feel a little smug, like, ha! You don’t get to have all the good weather all the time, Ibiza! Am I right? So here I am, reporting for duty as Ibiza’s very own weather girl. Today’s forecast is… pure sunshine and a top of 21 degrees, with a low of 12 later on tonight. There’s nothing but blue skies and some fluffy little white clouds ahead of me as I look out over my terrace. The sea is sparkling in the distance and the early arrival of tourists are already wearing flip flops and vest tops (are they insane?) as they sip on chilled beers and suck on icy poles (dependant on their ages of course). After a few weeks of persistent rain (‘It’s very unheard of for this time of year,’ all the locals are saying to each other in their daily catch-ups), the sun is finally BACK – though as self-appointed island weather girl, it’s also my duty to tell you the rain is due to rear its head one more time from Sunday through to Wednesday. Just saying. Don’t shoot the (rain-loving) messenger. And then, only then… we can start to talk about how summer has arrived!