Thursday the 14th September in Menorca and the storm returned in the night with fierce winds that slapped against the shutters and drove rain in great horizontal gusts across the complex. It must be from watching too many news stories but whenever I see palm trees being buffeted by high winds I automatically think of hurricanes and tornados. Our storm however was short lived this time and apart from fusing all the lights in our apartment no serious damage was done. In the morning we discovered that the reason the lights fused was because some rain water had seeped into an outside light fitting causing it to short circuit which tripped our circuit board. Actually I was quite impressed that this safety measure had worked so well as Vincennes, the electrician who originally installed the system, was only part time, his full time occupation being truck driver. Vincennes who is sadly no longer with us was in the great tradition of unorthodox Spanish craftsmen in that whilst he was not strictly legitimate, having no formal qualifications whatsoever, he did always have an answer to any problem. Once when a couple from one apartment complained that every electrical appliance they touched gave them a shock Vincennes considered the problem carefully for a while then he said "I have the answer, when you are to be making the cup of tea you must to be wearing the rubber boots" You really couldn't fault Vincennes's logic, only his workmanship.
The calm after the storm
My human contact on this day included our brilliant site manager
who located the dodgy light fitting for us and my deed was to fix it. My thoughts were on the late lamented Vincennes and his novel approach to all things electrical.
