I noticed it first by the sound. A soft hiss turning into a proper splash as I cut through Plaça d’Espanya, and the crowd did that small collective pause people do when something familiar returns. After two years of dry basins and taped-off jets, the Montjuïc fountains were alive again. I took the long way home just to keep that noise in my ears. Water doing work. Water showing off. I got back to our landing and thought of our winter of buckets under slow taps and a building WhatsApp full of timers, fines, and lectures. We had become very good at being thirsty.
Pepi was already at the window with a basil pot that had nearly given up in March. “If the city can splash, mine can drink,” she said, holding the saucer like a communion plate. She watered from a jam jar, not the tap. Habits stick. I like that about her.
Field notes, one week after the switch-on
I kept it simple. Same staircase, same hour each day.
- Courtyard temperature at 16:00
- Humidity on the fourth-floor landing
- Water-meter photo at 20:00
- Notes on smells, noise, neighbour behaviour
Temperature
Before, our little well of a courtyard was a kiln by mid-afternoon. Last week, with city fountains running and parks irrigating again on schedule, I measured a consistent 1.5 to 2.0 degrees cooler at 16:00. Not magic. Just shade that wasn’t crisping and stone that wasn’t heat-soaked to the core. You could stand by the mailboxes without feeling baked from below.
Humidity
Landing humidity nudged up a few points. Nothing dramatic. Enough to take the edge off the dry throat feeling when you climb to the third and stop to do the fake “checking pockets” rest. The air stopped smelling like warm plaster. It had a faint plant note again. Manuel says that’s just the mop water. I’ll take it either way.
Water use
Our meter picture book says we’ve not gone mad. Daily consumption is slightly up from the hardest restriction weeks, but still lower than what we used two summers ago. People are rinsing longer, not running longer. Different thing. The big change is behaviour, not volume. Fewer panic jugs stacked by sinks. More routine.
Street-level changes
Planters along the avenue have stopped being memorials to dead rosemary. The city crews are back with the slow hoses, and the soil holds the water instead of repelling it like a pan. On Saturday I watched two kids playing tag through a misted bed by the playground. No one shouted at them. The ground wasn’t dusting up into their shoes.
Shopkeepers did that thing where they wash the edge of pavement, and I didn’t get the old surge of guilt for feeling pleased. During the bans, the habit looked reckless. This week it read like a small reset. Pavement that doesn’t smell like the week.
The fountains themselves do more than look pretty. They become split-second air coolers as the breeze lifts spray across your face at a crossing. You can stand downwind of a small jet for half a minute and feel your heart slow. Cliché, but bodies notice.
What eased, what didn’t
The city has water again and the showy bits are back, but the background machine hasn’t gone quiet. Desal is still working. Reservoirs are healthier, not infinite. The drafted habits are worth keeping. We got good at short showers, at catching first-cold in a bucket to feed pots, at not pretending a sink is a bin. I’m keeping the bucket. It owes me nothing.
There’s a risk in the spectacle. Fountains on means people think problem solved. It’s not. It’s problem managed after rain. The difference is important. The building committee met on Tuesday and we voted to keep the monthly “water board” minutes for a while, just shorter. Less scolding, more practice. Pepi suggested a stairwell plant rota with a cap. Manuel rolled his eyes and built the timetable anyway.
Micro-experiments that actually helped
- Night purge in the courtyard for one hour. We opened the back gate at 22:00 and left the stairwell door ajar. The core cooled enough that the first climb next morning didn’t feel like wearing a scarf.
- Shade audit with a clothesline. We stretched a line across the top of the light well and pegged white cloth for two afternoons. It cut glare, dropped the centre temperature a notch, and didn’t annoy the neighbours. Pepi wants to sew a proper sail.
- Tap discipline without drama. Egg timer on the bathroom shelf, not on the phone. Two turns. It works because you can see it and it doesn’t ping when you’re shampoo-blind.
What I’ll keep from the drought
The lists. The measuring habit. The slightly smug feeling when you pour plant water from a saved jar and the basil says thanks by smelling like a pizza. Also the WhatsApp etiquette we finally learned. Less shouting, more photos. “Here’s my meter today. Looks steady.” It calms the group. Nobody wants another six months of fines talk.
A small walk to end
I went back to the fountains at dusk. The big basins weren’t doing the show, just the steady lift and fall. People leaned on the rail like they were waiting for a train that would never come. A boy held his mother’s hand and reached with the other, fingers spread, to feel the cool drift. On the way home I cut through our courtyard, put my hand to the tile, and didn’t flinch. Two degrees sounds like nothing. It isn’t.
We got back our soundscape. We didn’t get back permission to forget. That’s probably the right way round.
