Trying to motivate myself to garden today in nearly 38C when there is also a strong Southerly desert wind is like … is like trying to climb Mount Everest in Flip-flops. Not that I’m ever likely to attempt to climb Everest or indeed anywhere else for that matter, but there you go. The air quality today is also really poor. Oh, and my first early morning foray into the garden resulted in a moment’s panic. The acrid smell of smoke, when I walked outside, had me scuttling back inside to pack an emergency rucksack of essentials – just in case we had to evacuate at a moment’s notice. Fortunately, a few minutes’ search on the internet and interaction on a local FB group confirmed the fire was not in our local area but the result of a fire raging in Faro. Phew! Smoke travels a long way!
It’s also hot in the house and as I write this the inside temperature has risen to 28C despite closing the shutters when rooms fall in direct sunlight. No point in opening the windows we only let hot air in. This week is one of the rare occasions I wish we had aircon in one of the rooms.
With no respite for several days, I am hot, bothered and grumpy. I feel sorry for the thirsty plants (my babies) because they rely on this grumpy soul to keep them topped up with water. Lucky for them I am a plantaholic. Even so, thanks to a severe water shortage, there are still going to be a few casualties as I use the water sparingly.
Weather in the Algarve
One of the joys of surfing the web occasionally results in discovering a gem rather than what Google decides you should view. Today I discovered a brilliant weather website. IT’s a mine of useful information including live webcams. Perfect.
Useful websites:
Fires in the area will be recorded on the ANEPC portal
http://www.prociv.pt/…/SITUACAO…/Paginas/default.aspx…
Piglet in Portugal 
I guess it might have got even hotter after you wrote this?
So the South of Germany is not where you might think of for this type of heat, but it does get very hot every summer. We were worried last week that it might go over 40 but luckily we stayed below that, 37 or 38 was our highest so far this week. But it looks like we’ll stay over 30 for the foreseeable. Like you I keep watering the plants.
Stay safe in the heat.
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I feel for you (and your babies) as I know how it must be over there. We live in the mountains (700 meteres above sea level) so while it is hot, it is not as terrible as areas at lower altitudes. Saw the fires in Portugal on Italian news…so sickening to see that, and to think that there is no relief in sight for weeks!
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Hope you can stay cool. I love this phrase: ” like trying to climb Mount Everest in Flip-flops”
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Lovely to see your post again. I sympathise with you about the heat! I don’t function very well at high temperatures. I do hope it eases soon. Hope the fires stay well away from you.
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Yes, it’s been a while but I’ve been involved in writing a couple of novels with my collab partner Jim Dutton. We are currently working on our third book. Great fun … but hard work. The high temperatures certainly frazzled my brain and my ‘mood’ is on a short straw LoL
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The writing sounds wonderful! I can relate to the heat stress, so I do sympathise!
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That is sweltering! Wow! Please look after yourself.
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Thanks, Spinster. We are not set up to deal with extreme temps … fingers crossed they drop soon
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Delighted to hear from you even under your sweltering conditions ! Honestly thought of you only a few days back wondering how you and your walking were going – was lovely to see your post in the box ! Altho’ we are experiencing one of the coldest winters in recent years in eastern Australia with concomitant high Cpvid + flu _+ monkeypox and the rest . . . I well sympathize both fighting the heat and being fearful of the bushfires – truly hope for the best for the rest of summer for you. We have had so many flood spells here this year I am keeping my fingers crossed for next spring. Oh – I hate air-con also . . . best . . .
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Hi Eha. good to hear from you, too! You guys down under experience such diverse weather and OMG as for your bugs they are genetically modified. I have given up worrying about COVID now … the anxiety made me so ill, I nearly had a breakdown. We do everything we can to stay safe and as for Monkey Pox … I wonder if the Chinese also released ‘that’ as well. Stay safe, well and above everything else … Happy 🙂
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We managed a couple of days at 28C by traveling west. On the way home smoke was billowing toward us from the Faro direction but soon dispersed. It could be a long summer!
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Hi Jo, I have a feeling it IS going to be a long summer. Praying for rain at the moment.
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We had about 10 drops at Praia da Luz yesterday. That might be it until October!
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Yes, we also had a few drops of rain … sadly it was shortlived 😦
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I, too, was delighted to hear from you. It’s been a long time since I’ve received an email notice from you about a new post. I had wondered if you had stopped blogging. Sorry to read that it has been so hot. Hope the heatwave breaks soon.
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Hi Laurie, over the last year I have been involved writing a couple of books with my collab partner, Jim Dutton. Great fun but a lot of work.
I also struggle with WordPress software … it’s changed so much over the last few years for me it is not as ‘muppet’ friendly as it once was. However, I have used our writingforums.com blogging platform as well. https://www.writingforums.com/blog/blog/a-creative-spirit-in-portugal.80/
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Hope you get it figured out. Always enjoy reading your blog.
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My family up north in Porto are also reeling under the heatwave and my stepson told us today authorities had caught and arrested a 57 year old man involved in arson in one of the local forests.
The insanity of this is too much to wrap my head around!
Nice to see a post from you again.
Stay safe and stay cool!
Regards
Ark.
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Hi Ark, thanks for stopping by. Sadly I’d given up on WordPress because creating a post is a nightmare and takes me forever 😦 Then I look at the post I published tonight and it is riddled with sponsored content. 9 flipping adverts! So if I was hot and grumpy before I certainly am now LoL It’s changed so much since I started blogging 12 years ago.
I’ve been following the fires and heat in Northern Portugal and it is bad. I find it difficult to comprehend why anyone would deliberately start a forest fire. They must be sick in the head. I hope your family stay safe and well.
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