Hot Spain

Man it’s hot. The soaring temperatures here in Spain have made it almost impossible to move, yet impossible to sleep either. The bed is soaked and I’ve wrapped a towel around the pillow. I’ve got the fan on – which wobbles alarmingly and blows dust and a noisy breeze over my recumbent figure.
Parts of the country are in ‘orange alert’, which essentially means 40ºC and up. Seville, Cordoba and Jaén are always the hottest bits, with the appropriately named Extremadura and indeed most of the rest of the country not far behind. Madrid in the summer, with the added heat from the breathless streets and avenues, is almost impossible. By August, everyone has left and the city belongs to the tourists.
Right here, just a few kilometres from the Mediterranean, it’s still relatively cool according to the experts. We are probably just hovering in a laughably unimpressive ‘yellow alert’ or something.
There’s no air/con in the car, but the window works. I drive with as much of me sticking out of that window as I can manage, pulling myself back inside on blind corners like a careful turtle in a pool full of ecologists.
The answer is to buy a cave. They are more or less the same temperature all the year round. That is to say, warm in the winter, cool in the summer. The old ones have fleas, but the modern ones are spiffy enough, as long as you don’t mind narrow rooms and no windows. You also apparently don’t pay ‘rates’ on them as they occupy no surface ground. Better yet, if another child or a long-lost relative suddenly joins the family, you just get out the spade and start digging. When Global Warming really begins to bite, I’m away to a cueva.
But right now, it’s a cold shower and a nice cup of tea. Piping hot, two sugars.