We have belatedly entered high summer here in the Algarve. That is the time hoards of folks from Northern Europe descend on the place to bask in absurdly hot temperatures, while those of us who live here hide indoors or do a runner in the opposite direction to get some cool.
When Julie was alive we used to shut down the houses and leave for the Baltic zone for two or three months. However, when Julie died I lost interest in travelling. As a kid I loved travelling on my own. I find you relate better to the different places you visit if you are single.
Then Julie and I spent decades roaming the planet in chaotic bursts, rediscovering Spain and remote areas of France, then wandering about in the mountains of Romania, disappearing into the Sahara desert, and wandering around the Baltic States and Northern Russia.
The covid fiasco changed things quite drastically, and the new idiotic politics in Europe have made life progressively more abrasive, and air travel has turned into a nightmare. I have increasingly turned into a recluse, and these days rarely leave my tranquil home.
I am hoping that at the end of this year the war-mongers in Washington will get booted out, and that should lead to a different political era across Western Europe. Already we are seeing serious cracks in the political attitudes of several countries, and the move away from EU fascism is gaining strength.
I am looking forward to being able to visit my friends in the Ukraine, but I dread to see what a mess the country has become, courtesy of Boris Johnson disrupting the peace conference in Istanbul. He and Zelensky were two of a kind: a couple of utter buffoons. It’s amazing what damage can be done by idiots. What we need more than anything else in Europe is tranquillity.
Maybe next time I visit Serbia, and one of my favourite cities (Belgrade), I will be able to do so without the USA bombing me.
I still remember attending a Beach Boys concert in a school in that city way back, and afterwards the band wandered around the playground giving out money. They had been paid in local currency which they couldn’t export.
I also have fond memories of staying in a hotel moored on the river Sava with a delightful American friend.
It really is a shame how Europe has lost its one-time spring-like feel. Spring has moved on to somewhere else.
However, with temperatures in the forties it’s bad news just opening the front door. You are hit in the face with this surge of seriously hot air, and even walking down to the swimming pool is hard work.
Sorting out the sleeping arrangements is also a major operation.
When I first moved here I decided that living quarters would be upstairs, while the bedrooms would be downstairs. In the summer, upstairs rooms are simply too hot for sleeping. I did originally have AC units installed, but sleeping with them whirring away is an acquired skill. I prefer sleeping downstairs with the windows wide open.
Both extremes are difficult to handle. The first time I went to the Ukraine I was appalled at just how cold the place was. You could see for miles across a plain with scarcely a bump in it, and everywhere you looked was this dismal dirty grey. The sky was a whitish grey, and the ground was white, fading into a messy grey towards the horizon where it got lost in the sky.
On the other hand, I think the most wonderful feeling on my face was that of a light off-shore breeze purring across the harbour at Haifa as we approached Isreal. Things were dodgy even then, and our ship was immediately surrounded by gunboats scurrying around us. But that light breeze rubbed up against my face like soft warm fur. It was amazing.
As for Ukraine, the news from my friends out there is that people are at last beginning to smile. At last there is the prospect that Zelensky will go and they can return to some semblance of normality after ten years of complete American-backed nightmare.
Apparently, the latest craze out there is trying to guess how many billions of dollars Zelensky has stashed away, and whether they can be liberated, and if so, how?
Summer Heat