In South Africa, summer is just around the corner and Pretoria is getting hotter every day! Slowly but steadily the city is heating up and on some days I wonder whether there would be any point in going to the sauna or whether simply sitting in your car would do the job.
I wake up in the morning, because the sun is shining so bright through my curtains that I can’t even ignore it when wearing my super-stylish airplane eye mask and at 7am temperatures are already close to 20°C rising to 30°C by 10am!
A few weeks ago I got a sunshade, which has become a real life saver! It might have a stupid picture on it, but at least I can now get into my car without suffering a heat stroke … if I remember to put it on, that is. Unfortunately the other night I forgot it and when I got into the car the next morning, I could not even touch the steering wheel! Literally – could not touch it! After waiting a few moments, I realised how pointless this was – the wheel would not cool down in the midday heat and the air con wasn’t gonna cool anything unless I started driving. Hardly touching the wheel with my fingertips – and you try that going around corners! – I somehow managed to drive to the mall. By the time I got there, I felt as if I had just run a marathon in the midday heat and not like I had had a shower just before leaving home - Yuk! For the first time in ages I was actually grateful that the shopping center was air-conditioned.
When I was walking through the mall, slowly acclimatising, I noticed that something didn’t feel quite right. It took me a while to realise what it was: Christmas decorations had been put up since my last visit to the shopping center. Having spent all my Christmas’ in Europe, it was incredibly weird to be see Christmas trees and reindeers, something I associate with the cold, while almost having suffered a heat stroke on the way to the mall! Whenever Santa and I met in the past, I was wearing a coat at least as warm and fluffy as his and not a skirt and flip flops! Something was clearly not right here…
But I decided not to let a bit of Christmas decoration ruin my shopping trip and slowly made my way through the stores looking for a nice dress and some summery clothes for work. When I saw a really nice dress in one of the shop windows, I walked in to have a closer look, but as I was standing there, I once again felt as if something wasn’t right. It took me a while to put my finger on it, but finally I realised that the radio station was playing a Christmas song! “Dreaming of a White Christmas”, Mistletoe and Wine” or “Silent night, holy night” I don’t even remember because I ran out of the shop – almost fleeing from it – immediately! Christmas trees in bright sunshine next to palm trees are one thing, meeting Santa Clause in flip flops or having to eat my super-yummy chocolate reindeer in record speed because it would melt away otherwise, another. But buying a summer dresses to the sound of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” was definitely too much for me! Thank god I won’t actually have to celebrate Christmas out here as Ewa and I are planning to cruise the Nile in Uganda then. Let’s just hope that there won’t be any Christmas decoration on the boat – I am not sure if I would ever recover from the traumatic experience of spending Christmas Eve in a bikini!
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