The spring rain started with a bang yesterday. Or rather with lots of loud bangs and flashes of lightening. After being dry for the last four months the predominant atmospheric ingredient has become brown dust, so the coming of the rains is very welcome. Rain here isn’t half hearted, you have about three seconds to get under cover before being completely soaked to the skin. Our road floods to about a foot deep in half an hour, and bags of rubbish can be seen floating merrily down. Luckily we have a slope up to our front door and it hasn’t yet reached futher than half way up! And because Cordoba is in a bowl, the storm is all around us, making the forked lightening all the more spectacular.