Snow, frost, low cloud, high and freezing temperatures - we get it all!

PHOTOS:
views from the roof terrace ~ bell tower; Sierra Nevada in the distance; the ruin;
and .......... the cloud rolls in

This is a country of contrasts and the weather is no exception! The previous Saturday we set off for the coast for our weekly Spanish lesson and drove through a silver wonderland of frost glistening silver under the sun - a frost so heavy, the like of which I've rarely seen back home! On the coast, it was beautifully warm and sunny! (And Michael came out here to escape the cold winters back home?!) On our return we decided to treat ourselves to supper out that evening, so washed and brushed up we opened our front door - it took my brain a moment or two to catch up with what my eyes were seeing on the street outside - 8" of snow and it was still tumbling in large flakes from the night sky! Well, that put paid to dining out - no driving on those high, steep sided, windy roads - not on your life! We settled in front of the TV with supper! We were concerned though that if the snow continued to fall this little village would be completely marooned from the outside world by the morning! We needn't have worried - Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny. The village was enveloped in white - a real pueblo blanco in every sense of the word - but the sun so warm and melting from the streets. M swept the snow to one side on the terrace to make a seating area where we had breakfast, followed by morning coffee and later, lunch - by which time M was stripped to the waist and I had a little summer top on - and still we were surrounded by snow covered olive groves! A very strange experience. We finally retired indoors late afternoon when it grew cooler. What an amazing day with lots of photo opportunities. It was a couple of days before all traces of the snow disappeared.

We've had low cloud enveloping the village - having woken to a fine day we could see low cloud hanging over Iznajar in the distance - as we watched cloud roll out over the hills and valley before us like a thick white blanket of cotton wool and by the time we'd had breakfast and back to check developments from the roof terrace visibility was virtually nil - we couldn't see the house across the street and could have been the only people on the planet totally enveloped as we were by this white stuff!

We've had sunny days just like mid summer back home and today it plumetted to 7 degrees and we had a fantastic storm of enormous hailstones!

At least we know that however black the skies one day and cold the temperatures, the warm sunshine will return in a day or two!