Leaving Jerry Springer behind…

It's summer here in Cape Town. Not just any summer- feels like the hottest in decades. The kind of heat that causes orchids to grow spontaneously in the bathroom, and human beings to wilt like roses on the 15^th February.

It would be nice if all I was shedding were petals, but no. I'm 'glowing': what my mum always said was the polite term for sweating like a chain-gang full of convicts. Why is it that I can sit in the train looking malarial with a sheen of sweat soaking right through my clothes, and other people can look as if they are enjoying a mild breeze? I sit there, groaning softly to myself, rivulets of sweat creating tiny deltas on my collar, unable to summon the energy to fan myself.

The children also seem to battle- must have some Scottish gene that prefers the barren and frozen thistle-speckled highlands. I've never seen children sweat like this. It's so hot that if you drink cold water, steam is liable to scald your nose.

My hands drift limply over the keyboard, and I wonder if it will ever be cool again. It's been 35 degrees C the last couple of days- where Neen is in the States, it has been -4 degrees. It truly is bizarre to see the difference on the video link- her in scarf and hat, me half-naked (there is a distinction there: I do not send out live footage of myself naked on the net, ok?).

But am I really complaining?

In a month or two, the monotony of winter will set in- which in Cape Town is just enough wind to spoil an outing to the beach. There isn't any point in complaining about the weather (ok, sure, if your entire town is subsumed by a global superstorm, then maaaaybe you have a right to complain). Weather just is. I'd better stop before my sebaceous glands seep into the keyboard and ruin the computer.