Liar, liar, pants on fire

It's bitter, it's perishing, it's icy, it's freezing, it's horrid - over the past week I've been able to use these as topical English expressions for the students I teach because it has indeed been bitter, perishing and icy here in Ciudad Rodrigo. The thermometer on the chemist's may read a toasty -1ºC but it has been minus a few degrees overnight and it really has felt excruciatingly cold.

But we've been getting off lightly. Temperatures in Soria yesterday were -9ºC and it was -6ºC in Salamanca capital. Not warm. Madrid Airport was closed for five hours because of the snow and the telly was full of stories of people trapped in cars for hours on end on the motorways in and out of Madrid. In fact most of Spain has had snow including normally mild places like Murcia and coastal Andalucia. There was even a light dusting in Culebrón according to some friends and the water pipes of our house there froze.

Now who was it who was explaining to me that the reason we Brits emigrate to Spain was all to do with the mild and sunny weather?