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Blog: How do we cope with the prolonged heatwaves? (POLL)

It has been more than two weeks – or two months or two years, I kinda lost control of time – since extremely high temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius in the average are plaguing Greeks and visitors alike with heatwaves following each other.

Even during the night, temperature° does not fall below 32-30 ° C, which above well above the 27 degrees the human body needs to recover from heatwaves heat during the day.

Although I an a declared fan of summer and the heat, I’m #team_summer so to say, I have to publicly admit that this prolonged heatwave has a serious toll on me.

I can hardly eat something after breakfast during the day, I have interrupted sleep at night and I find it hard to work.

I look at the news to make a selection to post and comment on my blog site and they look back at me. We look at each other but no connection is being established.

My brain cells have been melting per dozens since the first heat wave of this summer in June, I’m afraid.

3 to 5 p.m.is the holy time when Greeks take a nap during the summer. Except for KTG. I hate naps especially in summer. I always thought they were a punishment for whatever the reason.

When I finally find some spark of energy usually after 8-9 o’ clock in the evening, sometimes also after 11, then I also feel some laziness, thinking it’s time for me to eat, water my plants, cool the balcony tiles, wash the dishes, do anything that involves fresh water or just rest from the exhaustion caused by doing fairly nothing during the day.

On the other hand, I could spend the whole day at the beach, some 4 km away.

For some reason, Greeks upload beach pictures of their legs, feet or thighs on social media. Go figure!

But to do so I need to leave home at 9-9:30 which is not possible as that’s the time I usually get off the bed and maybe even later.

After 11 a.m. I don’t dare out of home unless for urgent errant and appointments.

After 11 a.m. in the south suburb of Athens you can hear the cement of the mostly white painted residential buildings absorbing the heat and after 6 p.m. you feel them spit it back for another 2 or 3 hours.

ImageCats favorite place without cooling devices off  (above) and on (below).

ImageImage

I must also confess that I’m not a fan of fans and air-conditioning despite the cooling pleasure they provide. I prefer opened windows and balcony doors but sometimes I surrender: I get all my strength together, close five balcony doors and three windows and turn on both the fan and the A/C until I feel I start to freeze.

Yesterday, Sunday, for example, I did not to this and I was supposed to do meatballs and Greek salad for lunch.

I contemplated for hours wondering first if hunger was enough a motive to get me up and take me to the kitchen. It wasn’t. With all this water and juices and beverages there was no place in my stomach for food.

But I have a high degree of tolerance, so whoever was hungry was allowed to order.

I started contemplating again after 7 in the evening, at 8 took ingredients together, I mixed the mince meat with lots of fresh, parsley and oregano, salt, pepper, onion, soaked bread and egg … and then I put the mixture in the fridge to “relax for 30 minutes.”

To make the long story of dilemmas (ah, fry them tomorrow, put it in deep freeze, eat a sandwich, eat a fruit, drink half liter of sour cherries juice) the meatballs were ready at 10 pm for a nice, small Sunday dinner.

On the bright side of another horrible week, I manage to avoid Covid-19

BTW: I wanted to write and publish my travel post from my recent vacations on green and cool south Pelion but who wants to upload dozens of pictures during one too many heatwaves?

I may do it in the next days or next week or next month or before Christmas or something…

And how about you? How do you cope with these prolonged heatwaves?

How do you cope with prolonged heatwave?

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14 comments

  1. I off to Edinburgh at the end of this month.
    I’m looking forward to a bit of rain.
    Your meatballs look delicious 😋

  2. The heat is a heavy burden! The only time you can manage to be “you” is in the night! Just love your post, so well described! I like Pelion, Skopelos and Alonissos too, such (relatively….) cool, green places. So, I live my life, right now, as a “creature of the night” 😉 Everything, not essential, must just wait…..

  3. I laughed a lot, a LOT, reading your post. here, in syros, same story, same cats and dogs like puddles on the floor, the sea 10‘ away, but no-one understands the anguish of going to the beach, losing all the good you’ve done in the water in 5’ of hellish travel, and having to go back to the house, which didn’t go to the beach, no wind, and it’s still 31°-32° INSIDE, and also at night, no air-conditioning but two foot fans, and now I’m writing to you between them, 1 metre apart, to thank you for laughing so hard after another day with a decidedly flat EEG.
    looking forward to winter
    well, if we can call what we’ve got winter…

  4. Best is to stay at water, even at midday. In the shade of course. But if there is a breeze, it is doable and you can alway cool off in the water. Staying inside a flat or tent at campsite is hell. We rented a Kalyvi and keep the windows and doors open all the time to create some flow of air. We don’t like airco but somtimes we use it.

    Pelion is wonderful. Such a diversity of landscapes, scenary and microclimates.

    • keeptalkinggreece

      had years at free camping. tent is only to protect your things from thieves or ants lol

  5. Hi there, I am in south Pilion aswell. Today it’s cloudy and it will rain (hopefully).
    Even the sea isn’t refreshing as it is to hot with temperatures around 28 c

  6. I’m very much #Team_Spring/Autumn. I loathe the summer heat with a vengeance. My solution is to shut all doors and windows, turn on the air-conditioning units and do absolutely nothing. Fortunately as a pensioner doing nothing is not a problem. Since you obviously understand social media better than me, KTG, do you think there is any chance of me crowd funding my electricity bill?

    To avoid boredom, for the last two weeks I have been able to watch the Tour de France. Grand tour cycling and cricket are perfect since you can doze off for a couple of hours and know that you haven’t missed anything important. At the weekend the Olympics will start and after that the Vuelta a España should see me through to the end of August when, hopefully, the weather will improve. A bottle of cold white wine is always welcome since it reduces core temperature and greatly increases the probability of a doze.

    The keftethakia look delicious. Do you do delivery?

  7. Totally agree, and I love your cats. Mine are so stupid, they prefer to lie outside in the yard (in shade but still around 35 degrees) than come inside the cooled a/c house….