NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH HEATWAVE!

It is hovering around one hundred and fifteen degrees Fahrenheit in parts of Spain. Here in San Francisco, California, a formerly Spanish territory, the temperature is roughtly fifty two degrees. The perfect response in either place is a refreshing cup of tea. In Spain, it's British tourists who will gratefully drink that. Here, that would be nasty Dutch Americans.
Many of them with a pipeful of flue-cured leaf. Smidge of Perique.
There aren't very many nasty Dutch Americans here.
Actually, only one that I can think of.
My social life is limited.
How sad.


One hundred and fifteen degrees. Beastly.


It's important to eat sensibly when the weather acts up like that. Avoid the overly spicy dishes like devil's curry and vindalou à la Birmingham (Montezuma's Revenge), mushy peas as well as black beans in your burrito (dangerous nightime gasses that hit your noise spot on if you don't have your nether region poking out from the down comforter), overmuch ice cream (more gasses, like an Iowa pig farm), too much ice in your beer (athletic German macho behaviour in the hotel pool), or buckets of sweetened ice tea (hepped to the gills MAGA opinions that make you sound stupid).

And stay away from the seaside. Too many Northern Europeans.

My neighborhood was covered in fog when I stepped out to do the rounds with my pipe. Cold too. No one was wearing shorts while walking their dogs, although I did see one person with flannel jammies and a fluffy bathrobe. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the long scarf wrapped around their head, and the sunglasses. Which were not needed at seven in the morning, before the fog lifted.

Red Virginia tobacco with that smidge of Perique I mentioned is probably one of the best ways to face a horrid Spanish heatwave on the other side of the world, where it's nine hours different and a working air conditioning hotel unit in your hotel room is essential to a restful siesta. Otherwise you might have a stroke or bloodclot while you doze. They'll have to break down the door to find your fresh corpse being fed upon by the hyenas and buzzards that roam the urban areas of Iberia. Lizards and carrion eating water monitors. Irish.

The sounds of ABBA are coming from the nightclub downstairs.
Everything smells like sardines in rancid olive oil.


Perhaps you should have gone to the west coast of Scotland during your summer holiday instead. Low to mid sixties (around twenty degrees Celsius), there's a good chance of rain, no German tourists, and no one running the charming bed and breakfast out on the moors has even heard of Abba.
The tea is quite drinkable, the vindaloo has been toned down because the locals severely disapprove of tropic excess, and they'll offer you haggis but not force you to partake.

Why, it's just like San Francisco. Except we have no rain or haggis.
Our tea is also perfectly drinkable. If you can find it.
Abba is rare, and rather disapproved of.
We like people who talk funny.



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