My last post was interrupted before I could finish. We now all know the whole group of Thai children were saved.

#metoo… caption reads :I don’t think she is up for it Theo!” Love Dutch humor.

Western Europe is suffering from a real drought not seen apparently since 1976. Not being a farmer and retired I must say it is nice to live in a Mediterranean climate without having to travel for it. Because we have a subterranean sprinkler system the garden still looks quite green. As this happens once every half century we should not complain. Naturally the climate change people immediately start shouting global warming, though I agree with them a lot of times, I don’t think it is affecting us in that way. We were having extremely wet summers and tepid winters and elsewhere there were more quakes, typhoons and super monsoons. Truth to be told this summer feels more like the ones we used to have when I was young. Plus there were more hot summers before and after 1976. 1990 the year my youngest was born it was over 30 degrees already in Spring and that August broke many records. The little thing only wore nappies the first 6 months of his life. The summer news after the Worldcup, Wimbledon and the Tour is a slow time for the papers. So lets get panicky about a bit of nice weather. As for the farmers you would think they would put some money aside for a bad year between all the good ones. For all the thousands of years of agriculture there cannot be many surprises anymore. 

For all the discomfort it may cause for some, I love not to have to wear layers of clothes just to keep warm and the temperatures remind me of my youth in Curacao, in the West Indies. The big difference is that people here do not adjust their pace and priorities. Everything still has to be done yesterday. I remember my teacher telling me, after we just moved back from Curacao to the Netherlands : “Sylvia you are so slow, you even blink your eyes slowly”. I feel that I am getting that way again slowly, but surely. A wonderful (and comfortable) feeling. Can recommend it to all those people having burnouts and other psychological ailments because the pace of life nowadays is crazy. Maybe I should give a  how- to-relax course with the help of our dog Bonita , who is practically catatonic with this weather. When she goes outside she takes care to lie only in the shade and wear protective gear. Still wonder why I see so many balding white men without wearing a hat outside.

The heat seems to have affected our friend President Trump as well. He has gone even more crazy than before. During his last meeting with his buddy Putin he told the whole world he believed Putin above all his security services over the accusation that Russia is meddling with global politics making use of media hacking. To not upset his mate Trump he omitted to mention the poisoning of two Russian defectors in Britain,  unlawfully taking possession of the Crimea and shooting down a passenger plane killing all of them. Nor Putin’s support for the regime in Syria. The strange thing was that even though even his own party was furious, later they claimed to understand that he had misread his speech and did not mean to say what he said. Putin is laughing his head off. He probably has solid proof of a request from the Trump campaign to help them to the presidency and can make his puppet say anything. How else could such a nonentity become president from one of the mightiest countries in the world? Notice the warning look Putin is giving Trump in this picture.

One of hot summers’ best pleasures is reading. It is too hot for most things but quietly reading a book or e-reader is always possible. I am buying far too many books as most of the good ones come out before people go on holiday where they can catch up with reading. I read the recommendations in newspapers and Waterstone’s website and send myself samples on Amazon. So far so good. But then I start reading the samples and want to read the whole story. With the hot weather I stick to thrillers and sci-fi with some comedy thrown in. Enough to keep the heat unnoticed. You can see in my Goodreads list what I have been immersing myself in. May the weather continue this way a bit longer. It will be cold soon enough.

[social_warfare]