Willow in Winter

I grew up in Spain, though I moved to England almost four years ago. I usually visit my hometown once a year. It’s not that well connected because it’s a tiny island in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, so it’s hard to make it there in the winter because the only direct flights available are in the summer.

This is the first time I’ve come back in early spring, as I usually visit either in the summer like last year or at Christmas.

A very long walk on the beach

Spain is weird in late March. You’d expect it to be warm, as I know that’s when England gets weirdly warm and sunny weather, while Spain gets lots of rain and wind. So while I went to the beach, it was still too cold to swim, and the nonexistent Sun made it impossible to sunbathe. I wanted to go back to my English office with a somewhat of a tan, but I still have my pale face.

I lived on one of the typical islands that are very popular with tourists during the summer, but in the colder months, it’s empty, with just us locals. I prefer it like this, when you can walk for hours and maybe run into five people the whole way.

Most of the summer houses sit empty by the coast, as locals prefer to live closer to the centre of the island during the winter.

The island is full of walks you can do either on foot, by horse or by cycling. I obviously chose to walk as I prefer not to live recklessly.

I chose the muddiest day for this 7km walk, and my boots were covered by the perfect combination of dried sand and mud after weeks of rain.

Yes, I was wearing boots, because, did I mention it was still very cold?

Though now that I’m writing this post on the second week of April and I’m already back in England, it turns out the weather is nice enough for a swim, so I guess I should’ve waited a bit longer before coming back, but I missed my English life too much.

Visiting the old town

I took these pictures the first weekend of April when the weather was starting to look nicer, but trust me, it was freezing. That’s something Spanish people love to say, how extremely cold they are, when it’s like 15°C, anything below 20°C seems excessive.

I avoided all of the tourist spots, I just walked around with my family, trying to find locations that would seem interesting for this blog post, but in reality, I grew up in a very dull place with nothing to do. Some people love it, others like me, move away as soon as we can.

With it being a small island, you can see the sea most of the time, unless you’re right in the middle of town, but we have multiple harbours. This is one of the smaller ones.

I’m not a sea person, I’m not even a beach person, though I like to try to act like the average Spaniard sometimes by going to the beach once a year, wearing a bikini just once every summer and eating a vegetarian paella because I hate fish, which should be used as proof that I was born in the wrong country.

But which one is the right one? Probably one where no one eats meat, it snows a lot in the winter, but it’s also warm in the summer, and it’s socially acceptable to leave parties early and not talk to people that much. Does that country exist? Because I would move there immediately.

I’m back in England now, sipping my tea, watching the rain and wondering if I’ll be able to wear the spring clothes I bought, as it’s 1°C at the moment, but my coworkers were wearing shorts just a few weeks ago. Did I bring the bad weather with me?