Today at last it has been really warm again.  It seems ironic that the first year we can get away from the grim UK climate in the winter, it turns out to be the coldest, wettest winter Spain has had for 33 years!  It doesn't do much for my chronic pain.  This area is the only officially designated desert in Europe but last weekend we had as much rain in two days as they usually have here in two years.

The positive effect of this rain is that the arid countryside, described by Goytisolo as "a lunar landscape", has turned green.  There are wildflowers blossoming everywhere and when the sun is out, as it has been today, they are alive with the humming of bees.

In this far south-east corner, so far we have been spared the snow - not far up the mediterranean coast from here there is snow on the beaches.  Even the Balearic Islands have had snow!  Maybe to escape this unusual weather, a migration of camper vans has arrived in the Cabo de Gata.  Many of these are older people clearly not blessed with much money ( like ourselves) escaping the cold.  I like the van that had the motto, "Adventure before Dementia".  Today we met a man wearing a t-shirt with the same message.  I wonder if I can find one somewhere?

Just a few of the wildflowers blossoming by the roadsides, on the cliffs, on the sand-dunes, even on the edge of the beaches: