It's Summer in the South

Blue skies and sunny beaches

There are those who like cold weather. There are those who like to see a good covering of clouds. But there are also those who like warm weather, like to see the sun during the day, and the stars at night, and not have to spend an extra five minutes every morning putting on several layers of clothes, and spending another five minutes at night, untangling oneself from the various layers.

On tuesday I took a screenshot of the weather forecast. Here it is…

These temperatures are what you would expect during a north European summer. This, of course, is a south European winter. Admittedly we aren’t in the coldest month just yet, but I will try and print a weather report every week so you can see what you are missing.

Oh yes, and here are a few of my Christmas holiday snaps. I decided to disturb myself and get out and about for a few days to see how the other half lives…

Down here they live much as I do, although I do have to admit that as far as I can tell the cost of living has gone up round about 40% over the past two years. At least the increase was minimal for the previous twenty years. But I have decided to keep my receipts for the month of january to give you an idea what it costs to live here. Although there is a bit of cheating going on right from the off as I filled the tank with petrol in Spain, where the price is considerably cheaper than in Portugal, and I also topped up with wines that I cant get at home, especially the sherry type of wines, so that includes the whites from south of Cordoba, right the way across to the Manzanillas on the Atlantic coast.

Depending on which way the wind is blowing or the sun is shining I either use my car as an outside office, or work in the gazebo.

I do catch a few glimpses of the protest marches across Europe, but all is calm here. I do hope you guys keep on protesting. Things are not well at the moment and we need a change. Not just a change, but a drastic change. Wouldn’t it be nice in the EU collapsed and we went back to The Common Market? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get US troops in the guise of Nato out of our back yard, so we could return to a relatively peaceful way of life instead of wars breaking out every five minutes? In the last thirty years Europe has suffered no less than five Nato inspired conflicts. That is simply not acceptable. And all credit to Angela Merkel for admitting that the Ukraine conflict was deliberately fomented by Nato.

There’s a lot to be said for calm days, sunny skies, empty beaches, and people going about their boring businesses. Long may that continue to be the way of things along the southern shores of this very unhappy continent.