Summer over

I keep a diary. I have ever since I was 14. At the bottom of each page I note the weather for the day. In most of July and August it has been a pretty monotonous entry. It reads - sunny and warm - high 35ºC low 19ºC - well more or less, sometimes a bit warmer sometimes a bit cooler. I don't write sunny and hot till it gets over 40ºC and it hasn't done that in Culebrón all summer.

These last few days though all that has changed - cloudy, overcast and at times torrential rain. Maximum around 28/29ºC. The reason of course is that August is nearly over and there is a remarkable concurrence between the calendar and the weather here in Spain that I simply don't remember experiencing when I lived in the UK.

Summer is over in other ways too. Maggie is off to Qatar tomorrow so I will be left all alone in Spain for at least the year of her initial contract. I was due to start work again on Monday but there has been a bit of a cock up with my holiday pay so I'm not going to start back till the 11th now. This is actually quite good as I have been doing a half hearted bit of flat hunting in Cartagena and I have run into the problem that everyone is still on holiday. On Monday, being September, that will all change. I will be able to telephone people and get a reply. People will be back at work and there will be items on the radio and television about the inevitable depression that people suffer as they settle back into the work routine.

It's been a pretty standard summer. A good summer. We havent't been very far but we've done plenty most of it recorded in the snaps on Picasa and Facebook rather than as entries here.