Summer suffering!

For over a week now Phil has been fighting off a summer cold, one of those “head full of snot” colds, possibly an overblown form of hay fever, possibly just something going around. Whatever the cause of the affliction, there he is, dosing himself with Lemsip and working on thinking positive, which is my response to most afflictions. I suspect positive thinking works better for me though than it does for him.

Oddly enough I read recently that summer colds are a manifestation of the summer version of SAD, seasonally affected disorder, the gloomy depression that overcomes some people, including Phil, in the dark months of winter. According to what I read many people are similarly overcome, nay, overwhelmed, when midsummer comes around and they realise that it is all downhill from now on. The days will inexorably begin to grow shorter, the sun will start heading back in a southwards direction and everyone can resign themselves to putting away the barbecue kits.

Personally I think the summer version of SAD is a bit of an invention by people who want to feel important for having found yet another explanation for depression. Will there be a mid-autumn and mid-spring version next?

I have never quite understood why or how summer continues hotter through July and August, and even sometimes into September if the summer solstice is towards the end of June. No doubt the scientifically-minded can come up with an explanation for me, involving seas warming up, jetstream direction and stuff like that.

In the meantime, I shall continue to to enjoy the summer.

The pool police were out and about here yesterday. Well, at any rate when I went down for a swim there was a young man with a clipboard asking which flat people came from and whether or not we could name the owner of said flat. I gather from his presence that there must have been a spate of interlopers - personas ajenas a la comunidad - recently. He wasn’t there this morning. Maybe it’s only at the weekend that the interlopers arrive.

There are all sorts of rules -normas - concerning the pool: no eating or drinking, no “personas ajenas a la comunidad” unless accompanied by residents, only so many guests per resident, no eating or drinking in the pool area, no topless bathing - although topless sunbathing seems to be accepted on the grass outside the immediate pool area.

For a people many non-Spaniards of my acquaintance think of as quite anarchic, the Spanish do like to make lists of rule and regulations!