Temperature we have not seen since leaving good 'ol SA nearly a year ago. Heat that has forced a bead of sweat to run from my brow earlier today as I turned the meat and reached for my beer. Did it make me pine for home? Where almost everyday is like this in that garden of Eden that is SA? No it didn't. But it was nice to feel the sun on my back.
Gleefully, the dyed in the wool locals, pontificate on the unlikely scenario that middle Britain is actually hotter than Spain. It probably has been. This week past anyway. The pontification shouldn't last too much longer though - and I do hope I eat my words but I fear that the weather will inevitably change for the worst. I cant imagine too much of a good thing. All manner of woe will befall us should it not change. Already the trickle of complaints about the heat on day two of this wondrous week has turned into a deluge of misery as previously very winter white bodies are now glowing red. Very red.
The Brits, you see, are obsessed with what the weather does. Which in itself is strange as for a lot of the year its grey, cold and mostly wet. One would think that they would be used to it and it would be a case of 'Keep Calm and Carry On' but that does not seem to be the attitude here. Alright I know you know all this already as I have written about it before so I won't go on about it for much longer...the point is that it affects a variety of things and this year, with the Olympics (by the way I have tickets to go watch an event...just putting that in there), the Jubilee celebrations and so on it is particularly important.
And so in the words of an unliked wannabee Winston Churchill but comes no where close politician the Brits are encouraged to go on 'staycation', to show a little national spirit in these heady days of both celebration and austerity. Staycation? A made up word to encourage the Brits to take a holiday at home instead of flocking to the Costa del Dol or the Algarve where beer is much cheaper, flights and package holidays can be got for less than it would cost to drive to Plymouth, the weather is consistently and almost guaranteed to be sticky boiling hot and the Med is invitingly warm. So its no contest really. To those without national pride anyway. Compare all that with expensive Britain, clogged up roadways, inconsistent weather and the mind numbingly cold water of the north Atlantic. Hmmmm. What to do?
Us? We're off to Portugal in August.
And here's a little story that has reminded me of home. My daughter had her phone stolen yesterday whilst with mates in a park in town. Tearfully she phoned me to tell me what had happened. Being the adult I am I perhaps naively told her to find a policeman and report it (imagine doing that in SA) which she did. Its a pay as you go phone, about a year old, not really worth anything, she didn't open a case. Today she's over it, she says revelling in not having a phone (oh hello?!) Today too, we get a call from the cops, can they come and see her tonight? To take a statement I'm assuming. I write this with bated breath, coming from a country where basic policing has broken down to a point where it is non existent to this; its just a phone and there was no violence or confrontation involved. I am curious.
Until next time. God speed.
