Dear Reader,
So, how’s your summer going?
Has it been hot?
It’s … not … that hot … here.
Well, not hot like it was in Montana in July.
By July in Montana, I was doing my religious summer routine.
Wake up. Close the windows. Close the blinds. Keep the house cool.
After struggling to keep two thoughts together in the afternoon, I’d sit on our shaded patio and wait for the temperature to drop so that I could go back inside and open up all the windows, turn the fans on and think about frozen margaritas and Montana windchill in February.
Then, repeat.
Here, on the Silver Coast of Portugal, I think I’ve only mumbled something like, “It’s pretty humid today, isn’t it?”
It helps that we’re near the ocean.
We get a cool breeze coming in from the Atlantic almost every day. The mornings start cool and overcast, and the afternoons are sunny and sometimes windy.
So far our highs have gotten into the mid-70s, and lows in the 60s (Fahrenheit of course).
I went to Lisbon to shop on Thursday (gasp!) with a new friend, and I would say it was “sticky” in the dressing rooms and I gulped water, but I wasn’t miserably hot.
People with experience here tell me that it’s an unusually cold summer.
I don’t know, but it’s very temperate and I feel like I’ve slid from January into July with mild surprise, the way you might feel when the bathwater reaches the point where it’s too cool to stay in it.
But, there are other things to talk about besides the weather.
My days here are sometimes surreal.
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