Wow, it's hot.
Dry too. We haven't had a good rain in ages here. I don't have to do much weeding because the intense heat is shriveling them up and it's too hot anyway to do more than pull up a few pieces of ginger and sweep the steps.
So my day is pretty much like this right now.
I work in the morning. I've been getting up earlier and earlier to enjoy the cool and to prevent the computer from blowing up. Its little fan or whatever is in there to keep it from overheating is working like a son of a gun and the heat shimmers out of the top like a mirage. It manages to keep its cool until about noon and then it starts panting and whining like a hot dog.
So it's up at 5.30am and Betsy cat loves it. It means she can eat earlier and wander to her cool place down the stairs where the bricks stay shaded all day. The sun comes up with a soft red glow, the neighbourhood is quiet and the birds are already gathering breakfast and singing with their usual optimism that the day will be a super one.
On goes the coffee and into the work I go. A break for morning tea, then lunch, some reading to let that settle, then it's off to the beach.
Every single day I am grateful for where I live because I slink off down the stairs in my flip flop jandals with my old towel, Atlanta Braves baseball cap, and baggy shorts with the little green turtles on them, walk for about three minutes to the beach, slide over the bank onto the sand, throw everything down and head for the water.
How does one describe that feeling of water ... silky soft some days, and when the wind is up it can give you a bit of a slap upside the head. It's been warm, the water, almost too warm. I don't see any of the little schools of fish I used to see in the shallows.
My jandals make quite loud squeaks as I walk back. One afternoon a guy walking along on the opposite side of the street said, 'You'd never make a burglar in those so don't try to rob a house after you've been swimming. Too much good rubber in them.' OK got it.
A friend's Mum used to say that a swim really cooled you down and set you up for the rest of the day. That may be true, but it's the cold beer that I often have after I've come back from the swim that does the trick.
Of course no more work gets done after that. Betsy and I sit out on the deck with our beverages (she quite likes some cubes of ice in her water on these hot days), heads hanging low but comfortably. We read the local paper, or a book, and catch up on the events of the day.
​She tells me about the cool bricks and I tell her about the wonderful sea.