Who needs a Native American shaman and a rain dance to make the heavens open? I’ve got a much better idea; wash the car after neglecting it for so long that its silver surface had turned Saharan sand coloured. Although it had been between 27-30 degrees and a blue sky most of the day, I should have known that giving the car an overdue bath was tempting fate.

A sign that the first November rains were on the way was the sudden striking up of a frog chorus after months of refusing to utter a note. After about an hour of excited croaking, bulbous black clouds bullied the mauve sunset out of the way and the frogs were rewarded by a sudden downpour.

It only lasted about fifteen minutes and was replaced by the most amazing light show. Above the clouds a magnificent thunderstorm raged, with almost continuous forks of lightning lighting up the clouds spectacularly from the inside (what my nephew would call a battle between Sephiroth and Cloud - a Final Fantasy reference). The display lasted for a couple of hours and proved a much more enjoyable alternative to what was happening on a football pitch in England.

Sometime in the early hours, the heavens really let rip and it monsoon-ed down for much of the night. I could almost hear the garden sighing from the comfort of my bed. By morning I wouldn’t have been surprised to see an ark floating past the window, but the rain had subsided to almost a drizzle and the first blue patches of sky were beginning to show. Everywhere was fresh and gleaming. The leaves on the trees looked as though they’d just been given a fresh coat of emerald gloss.
I know it’s little consolation to those people who are on holiday here on Tenerife (at least this downpour only happened during the night), but the sight of the rain was very welcome after a long dry summer; it’s great to see everything in the Garden of Hespérides looking shiny and new again.

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