Damien Enright: An ‘event’ observed (for a while) over coffee on terrace

A flock of sheep and goats, followed by a ‘pastor’ (shepherd), finds its way home across terraces now abandoned below Chipude, a mountain village in La Gomera.

I took a break from scribbling this morning to have a coffee with my son, who had also taken a break from his writing. His mother and I met him and his wife and sat outside a cafe — where else would one sit in June (or at any time of the year) in the climate of La Gomera?

But then, the sky darkened above us, and the rain, forecast every day for the previous three days, at last began to fall, drop by heavy drop, hitting the table tops and resounding on our heads.