Tag Archives: Storm Celia

Another Challenge in Rural Mallorca

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Filed under Utilities
Some challenges are more challenging than others. And no, this isn’t The Boss. I took this photo at the weekend while walking between Betlem and Es Caló.

Last time I wrote, I hinted at an even messier clean-up than that which would follow Storm Celia’s generous Saharan dust deliveries. We were facing another challenge in Mallorca. The Boss had discovered a Big Problem in our dependencia – the outbuilding housing our solar batteries, inverter, and diesel generator.

The once-white wall behind the generator was now black. The exhaust pipe had become detached from something (the manifold, I believe). Instead of the noxious fumes being expelled through the exit pipe in the wall, they were staying inside and blackening the wall.

The company that services our generator and solar-electricity system sent their technician Alfonso to deal with the problem. And, wouldn’t you know it? He found another: an oil leak. He fixed the exhaust problem and said he’d return in a few days with the spare part needed to deal with the leak. Little did he realise he’d be back the next day.

And then there was no light

When we awoke the next morning we had no electricity – yet another challenge in Mallorca. The Boss and I did some head scratching (our own, not each other’s), after checking the fusebox in the house. Then, inverter manual in hand, we went to see what was amiss in the ‘workings’. After unsuccessfully trying the suggested troubleshooting methods, we gave up and phoned our service company. This involved driving almost to Manacor to get a decent mobile phone signal, as our home phone doesn’t work without electricity.

Alfonso (with the spare part we’d needed for the generator) and a colleague arrived about an hour later. They soon established that the problem was not the inverter but, ominously, ‘somewhere in the house’. Would we have to dig into the walls to source some random rogue wiring? Thankfully not. The answer would be found in the fuse board.

After a series of domestic equipment tests – one of which involved removing our oven completely from its housing so he could check the wiring behind it – Alfonso identified a problem with our water pump. Long story (and morning) short, Alfonso and his colleague replaced the broken part on the water pump, fixed the leaky generator, then left with a generous tip from The Boss.

We’ve yet to attack the blackened wall with cleaning products and a fresh coat of white paint, but that can wait. More pressing jobs, in the garden, are calling.

Dare I say that normal service has been resumed at our finca in rural Mallorca? Yes … I think so. (I touched my wooden desk as I wrote that, even though I’m not superstitious).

© Jan Edwards 2022

Celia’s Visit to Mallorca

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Filed under Weather/Climate
Yellow is the colour of spring in Mallorca – but where’s the sun?

How was your winter? On our island, January and February were pretty good months in terms of weather. But March has been a different story, as it brought Celia’s visit to Mallorca – a stern reminder that winter wasn’t quite over.

During the first two months of 2022, our solar-electricity system lapped up plenty of sunshine and, although we had more frosts and some colder-than-usual nights, the warmer daytime temperatures meant we had lunch on the terrace quite often.

The Balearic Islands also had the third-driest February since 1961, according to the Spanish meteorological office AEMET. We had 94% less rainfall than the average for the month – which is apparently 44.2 litres. Overall, this winter was the driest on record – and probably one of the most worrying for Mallorca’s farmers.

March Brings Change … and Celia

Friends who recently arrived at their holiday homes may be regretting not coming to Mallorca during January and February, because the sun hasn’t had its hat on much since March began. Instead, we’ve had some chilly, windy days and much-needed rain. Spring has begun, looking (and feeling) more like winter. Meanwhile, back in the UK, the sun is shining and temperatures are warmer than average for March.

We braced ourselves for Celia’s arrival. Although she sounded as though she could be a benign, elderly great aunt, she was just a name. The name Portuguese meteorologists had chosen for an imminent storm.

Storm Celia began her journey northward over the Iberian Peninsula early last week, turning the Sahara-dust-laden sky over southern Spain a murky orange and coating everything in its path – even the snow on the Sierra Nevada – a fetching shade of pale terracotta. The Boss threw another log on the fire, and we braced ourselves for the big clean-up operation that would follow what was reported to be ‘an exceptional’ Saharan dust cloud.

But the sandy residues weren’t the only concern at our finca. After his usual weekly check of our solar-electricity system components, The Boss came back to the house with bad news. And we’d be needing more than a broom, a mop, and a bucket of water to deal with this latest challenge. To be continued.

©Jan Edwards 2022