Yet again, the weather shows how it can throw away all the historical models.
Just a couple of weeks ago we were baking in extreme temperatures and relentless sunshine.
Yet here we are in the early part of September with lots of rain and cool, cloudy days. It has been raining on and off for some days and the forecast is for this to continue. The average rain in this region for September is 25-30mm over 5 days through the month, already there has been much more than that. Other parts of the country have suffered flooding.
On Saturday we decided that a short walk out around the area would be nice, and we also wanted to look at the damage caused by the fire a few weeks ago. There had been rain earlier in the day but the skies were fairly clear and some sunshine was showing through.
We prepared to go out and the clouds arrived, then some thunder, then the rain started. We decided to go anyway and, with our umbrellas, started off down the road. After less than 400 yards, with the rain beating down and the storm increasing we turned round and hurried back. Drinking a hot cup of tea and eating a cake while watching the weather from indoors was more enjoyable.
However, the storm soon passed and, after donning dry clothes, we set off once again.
Our route, through Cortiçada and up into the forest, had been quite familiar over the past few years but now things are very different.
The track into the forest goes past a house that we considered purchasing. The new owners have done some renovation work that you would not normally be able to see past a giant fig tree, now burned and probably dead.
Higher up this track is a storage area that we had never previously seen, now fully exposed amid the mass of burned trees.
A little further up is the main forest area, cleared of vegetation and foliage.
To show how well the firefighters had worked, someone's forest retreat has been spared, the railway line can also be seen at the top of this picture.
At the point where we were perhaps farthest from home, the view of another batch of rain was approaching, seemingly targeting our area.
The walk was fairly brief but we stayed dry. The views of the burnt forest are quite striking, even more being so close to it, and it is easy to see how much worse the fire could have been without the work of those hundreds of firefighters risking their lives while dealing with these scary events.