Mallorca's Big Freeze

Do you remember the winter of 2012? This will be the question posed in years to come when tales of the Mallorcan winter will have reached levels of preposterous exaggeration and will have entered folklore in granting 2012 the title of the big Mallorcan freeze.

Unfortunately, for Mallorca's northern parts and some other parts, the big freeze was something of an anti-freeze. Yes, it was cold, but snow? Too few snowflakes to mention. It snowed. A bit. And not as much as it did two years ago. But nevertheless, the year of the big freeze will find its way into the annals of what was, for anyone on much of mainland Europe, no more than a slight cold snap.

1956 was a different kettle of fish. And the chances were that the fish were left unmolested for some three weeks back then. So much did it snow that it lingered for a week on pavements (or what would have passed for pavements 56 years ago) in places such as Can Picafort. This, at least, is what a "picaforter" tells me, though he clearly isn't 56 years old.

Nevertheless, 1956 was Mallorca's 1962-1963, the winter in Britain when the country came to a standstill for months on end. And do you remember the winter of 1962-1963? I do. The big freeze was no myth. In 1956 in Mallorca, though, there was snow to a depth of 60 centimetres up in the mountains. Nearly two feet in old money. That was a fair old amount of snow, especially for an island where it isn't meant to snow, yet where it does with reasonable regularity.

But back to the fish. At this time of the year, the fishermen expect to take to their boats and go and hound the little "jonquillo" goby fish, catch them in abundance, haul them in and let them be given a sound old battering by the local restaurants. For 1956, the tales are probably so tall that the sea froze. It hasn't frozen in 2012, but marine conditions have been so bad that the jonquillo have been left to swim around rather longer than they might normally do.

The fishermen have been just one set of victims of Mallorca's anti-freeze 2012. Endless photos of what may or may not have been snow posted onto Facebook have been joined by endless other tales of woe. School buses couldn't make it through, planes were grounded because Palma airport had no de-icer, and staff at Pollensa town hall have been forced to wear mittens.

This latter tale of woe isn't, however, anything to do with the anti-freeze of 2012. It has to do with the inadequacy of the heating system. A couple of million or more spent on renovating Pollensa town hall and someone forgot that it can get cold in the old buildings with extremely high ceilings in Mallorca. Clearly this someone hadn't been around in 1956. He or she should have had a word with the bloke in Can Picafort.

Or, he or she should have had a word with the chap from Pollensa's tourist office when it used to be located in Sant Domingo, another ancient stone edifice with high ceilings. One afternoon I found him with gloves on, a heavy coat and a scarf, huddled next to a useless oil-fired radiator. He could barely speak. At some point, maybe in 56 years time when there is another "record" cold snap, they'll have finally got round to realising that most buildings in Mallorca are utterly hopeless in anything other than 40 degrees in summer, and even then most of them are also hopeless.

Still, at least at Pollensa town hall and certainly in the seas in the north of the island, there was water. Unlike in Sa Pobla where lightning struck and the town's water supply went down. Had this water outage lasted longer than much of one day, they could have rung up the ruddy great desalination plant in Alcúdia that no one uses, except for Pollensa. They don't have to worry about wells being put out of action in Pollensa as they are as inadequate as the town hall's heating system; hence a reliance on salty water turned drinkable, which one hopes isn't full of jonquillo because the fishermen haven't been able to get out for a couple of weeks.

Were the town hall to have a decent heating system, it might be because it runs on natural gas. And this, gas, is another tale of the big anti-freeze of 2012. Record gas consumption levels have been registered, say Endesa proudly, conveniently ignoring the fact that records have been in existence for no more than a couple of years, the length of time there has actually been natural gas on Mallorca.

Yes, we will remember the winter of 2012. We won't be allowed to forget it thanks to Mallorcan "veterans" who will remind everyone of the anti-freeze in years to come when the question is asked as to what the weather's like in February. And if they don't remind everyone, there will be something wrong. Like they will be saying it's 20 degrees plus and glorious. And the fact is that they wouldn't be wrong. Because this is what it is likely to be in a week's time. Do you remember the winter of 2012? What winter?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.