Surviving

We spent new years eve day huddled in the front room in the dark, curtains drawn, playing scrabble and drinking frozen fruit shakes. I felt a bit apocalyptic, justified by the fact that it hit 45C (113F) yesterday according to the Abruzzo club sign. Our lovely brick house stays a good ten degrees cooler than outside, maybe a bit more in the hallway, which is great but means that it's still 35C (95F) inside. Who knew that hot could feel so cool? Around 4:00 we ventured out in search of real air conditioning, choosing to see the French film Tell No-One (Ne le dis à personne). The film was very good - and did I mention that it was air conditioned?

Stepping back into the furnace afterwards was literally breathtaking; I could feel myself cooking. At a friends' birthday in the park a few days ago we were chatting about growing up in Australian summers. Someone remembered that we used to put the sprinkler on in the back yard and spend the day running through it. With the current drought, no-one even owns sprinklers - or if they do, know that they will face a neighbourhood lynching committee should they use them. There are other memories and survival tactics from childhood - like the closing of curtains and doors, mango in the freezer, a love of bathroom tiles.

Last night at 10pm we were still sweating, sitting on our neighbour's porch drinking various alcoholic concoctions and talking about the intensity of the day. It wasn't any cooler when I went to bed at 3am. Thank god I bought us a fan a few weeks ago.

Today is meant to be cooler but I just stepped outside to water the very withered tomatoes and got slammed by that wall of heat that only 100+ days can deliver. There's a cool change coming this evening when we'll finally be able to pull back the curtains, open the windows and doors, and emerge from our cocoons to enjoy the 24 hour respite from the heat.