Thunder & rainbows & bubbles

The wet weather we experienced on Wednesday has continued. The noise of the rain early this morning (5-ish) woke all bar our most elderly resident up. Thunder was heard yesterday and today and the valley has been pretty much filled with cloud all day today. There have been a couple of breaks including one where we were treated to a beautiful rainbow. The forecast is better for tomorrow and we're now hoping to start the grape harvest on Sunday. It will have to be a vendimia rapida as we've only got until about Thursday before another turn is forecast (and that is also the day of the Los Ruices fiesta). The sequential plan for the harvest followed by party preparation has gone for a burton and it's going to be very busy next week. Luckily, more help is arriving and I have been offered additional help (in exchange for wine!) which I may well call upon.

'Work' is mainly house-focussed at the moment with Dad in the workshop repairing furniture, Adam laying in stocks of firewood and clearing the stables (corrales) & Elsie and myself tidying & rearranging the house while (finally) unpacking my non-urgent belongings that arrived 6 weeks ago.

I am pleased to report that fermentation has kicked in with the Tempranillo grape must in the bodega, somewhat over-vigorously as we had to deal with a leakage through the 'exhaust' valve on the tank as wine bubbled out with the carbon dioxide that is produced. We are still working our way through some grape juice that we have kept in the fridge but I swear that that has also started fermenting (hic).

Here's hoping for some sunshine to aid our final preparations tomorrow.