Oh boy it's been hot! - tea & toast & tapas

In the good old bad old days we took our holidays in August, we went to Greek Islands and Turkey, we lathered up in carrot tinted suncream which offered little protection and we roasted like chickens on the spit. Two weeks with the sole intention of getting as brown as possible and then the rest of the year trying to keep it glued on with a top up to Tenerife in the winter. Nowadays I can’t even contemplate sunbathing.

Sure I will take a trip to the beach and a dip in the sea but most times you find me on a sunlounger with my kindle under a nice shady beach umbrella. Roof down in my car am in a cap with Factor 50 on my face. At home, where luckily we have a pool am not in it until the UV rays have gone down. Yet somehow my arms and legs and face are a nice shade of healthy glow. Sadly I gave up bikinis years ago and wear a well covering range of sensible yet funky print cossies and cover ups so my belly and boobs (I was known to go topless to avoid strapmarks) nowadays that area of my body looks like it belongs to someone else. I am like one of those books that split people into bottom, middle and top. Its milky white, I guess am like a cafe latte that hasn’t been stirred.

Spain generally is on fire, literally, We had our own horrendous wildfire in the Baix Emporda of Tortosa and many friends were frightened and displaced. It got so close it was seriously scary we could see the flames through the trees on the hill and we had our go bags prepped and four cat baskets lined up with them locked in and moaning. Saying that the big boy cat, Tinker, successfully rattled the cat door so hard he sprung it open and they were all lounging on the terrace when we got up having not been evacuated in the night. Took this photo from our back terrace, it looks closer than it is but let’s just say I didn’t get much sleep.

The last two weeks have been ridulously hot, husband says its always like this, online news and weather channels say global warming, hotter than hades and certainly hottest since records began and weather maps are now coloured in alarming deep reds almost black. The fires were so bad in Northern Portugal an North West Spain that the smoke had drifted right across to the Med side and the sky took on this ominous orange glow blocking out the sun for twenty four hours.

It is such a short window of extreme heat, really in a couple of months you won’t be able to put your toe in the pool in case it freezes solid and drops off, although year round it is generally warm and sunny with rain to keep everywhere green and the wells and balsas filled. So how do I cope now you may well ask? I stay indoors with the aircon and fans trundling away, we have solar so am not worried about consumption (electricity not the illness). If I have any urge to do anything it is first thing in the morning and cooking dinner is limited to anything that can be shoved in the oven, can be prepared sitting down in front of a fan and takes no more than 20 mins on the hob. Even then am extremely sweaty and grumpy by the time I sit down. Pizza and salad, fish and shellfish, peel it chop it one pan cook it.

Apparently as you age your body finds it harder to regulate your body temperature which is why they advise old duffers like me to stay out of the midday sun. Am not complaining I have plenty to be thankful for. The sunrises and sunsets, the summer storms which are starting to brew, I’m retired I can do what I please, read, snooze, watch netflix and chill.