This is an early, extra post. The real one will be along later. . . . Meanwhile, don’t be confused and miss yesterday’s.

Galicians are always telling me the weather here is just like the UK’s. Well, no it bloodywell isn’t. Ireland’s maybe but not Britain’s. There, most people have at least Ireland and possibly Wales as well as a buffer to soak up the stuff that comes from the Atlantic. Here there’s zilch and we are the ocean’s first port of European call.

In the UK, ‘sunshine and showers’ is an adequate forecast for most days of the year, pointing to a massive variability. In fact, you can have all four seasons in a single day. Here, on the other hand, the weather ‘sets in’ for days or even weeks on end. This is great when you’re talking about sun but less than welcome when it comes to rain. And, as we effectively live in the middle of the Atlantic, there’s a lot of this stuff. Especially in winter. In fact, during our ‘wet season’, we get three times as much rain as Manchester in the UK. I often wonder how this goes down with Brits who’ve blithely discounted or even ignored the comments on my Galicia web page and bought isolated properties up in the mountains. The ones who haven't killed themselves, I mean.

What has prompted this little diatribe is that – after a 4 weeks of sun – we’re now well into a third week of non-stop rain plummeting from Galicia’s traditional winter blanket of thick, low, grey cloud. And I’ve just been drenched getting some petrol for the car.

On the weather theme, it struck me the other day most forecasts here are remarkably accurate. But then I realised how easy it actually is. If the wind is coming from the west, it will rain. If it’s coming from anywhere else, it won’t and the sun will shine. Or, even more simply – If it’s coming from the left, rain. If it’s not, sun.

So now you know. If you’ve taken the trouble to google ‘galicia weather’.