One Day, There Really Won't Be Autumn

Autumn is a strange season in Mallorca. Officially it exists but also doesn't exist. Meteorologically it is a reality, but for tourism it isn't. The tourism summer endures until the end of October, and then winter starts. There is nothing in between and nothing in between winter and summer. Mallorca, a land with no autumn and no spring.

Autumn can't be ignored though. Its evidence is all around and in particular in the way that its weather wraps around you. Its heat is discomforting and disorientating, a vaporous clamminess like a giant pink-paraffin heater. It rises from the dampness of the heavy dews, clings to the early-morning mists hanging over the wetlands and is suspended and static unless winds chase it away. This oily radiator warmth mixes with the watery atmosphere and gives birth to seasonal nuisances - the mosquitoes and the flies; always the flies, the scourge of autumn, only seconds away from invading your legs, hands, ears or nose, the moment you settle down on a terrace.

The heat is still sufficient for the beach, yet this is where the disorientation lies, along with a guilt factor. Should one really be going to the beach now that it is October? Isn't the beach something for July and August? How does one cope with autumn's heat as it doesn't feel quite right to cope with it in the same way as in summer?

The tourists don't struggle with this quandary. They carry on with bare flesh intent regardless, beach bound and unaware of a Mallorcan tradition that once the temperature dips below thirty it is time to get the cardy out of the wardrobe (where it will have been going musty over summer and so needs several washes and applications of apple-fragrance conditioner to restore it to wearing order). Otherwise, the most noticeable change in tourist behaviour and demeanour is the proliferation of ageing knobbly knees and backpacks, along with the incessant sound of Nordic Walking poles clunking against tarmac.

The October should-you-go-to-the-beach, shouldn't-you-go-to-the-beach dilemma is going to be resolved over the next few years. Well, it may take more than a few, but some time in the future the Mallorcan summer will encroach into winter. Hotels will not need to close at the end of October, flights will continue long into November, bars will stay open and no one will know how to cope with employment contracts that never normally extend beyond 31 October (if the employee is lucky).

Climate change is going to change the Mallorcan late season, so much so that the number of days that it will be possible, without any sense of disorientation or guilt, for one to be able to enjoy the beach and the sun in autumn will have doubled from around 30 at present to at least 60. I hadn't been aware that an official number of days that one can enjoy sun and beach in autumn had ever been calculated, but thanks to the meteorology department at the Universitat de les Illes Balears, I now do. And it is this department which says the autumn sun and beach days are set to increase by 100%. There won't be an autumn at all, it would seem.

If this is the case, the sooner a doubling occurs the better. If the Mallorcan summer also does a backwards encroachment into a Mallorcan winter, i.e. into March and April, as well as its forwards one at the end of the season, then there will be eight or nine months of season. Brilliant.

Unfortunately, we can't just immediately forget about having to arrange winter in Mallorca programmes and having to complain about lack of flights and lack of hotels being open. The meteorology people say it will be 2094 before 30 days become 60 days.

So, for the time being, we are left with what we have. Hotels starting to close, restaurants starting to close, newspaper and whitewash being gathered to cover windows and terrace glass doors, seasonal employees waving their goodbyes and bidding tearful farewells, the summer's workforce putting their documents together and trooping off to the dole office in the probably forlorn pursuit of some benefit, the piling up of wood, the worry that benign autumn weather will suddenly go pear-shaped and rip roofs off, and the dilemmas - beach or not, duvet or not, long trousers or not.

Autumn is a strange season and a strange time, but one of its least strange aspects is the consequence of the weather, bedding, and clothing dilemmas and of being too slow in responding to chillier evenings and mornings. Colds. And thanks very much, autumn, my sore throat is now coming along nicely.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.