Winter wet and windy

It’s the Fourth of July. Today, all over America, people are preparing picnics and cookouts, planning trips to the park or the beach, and looking forward to firework displays. Tomorrow they will b nursing sunburns and hangovers, traditional legacies of America’s celebration of her independence from Britain more than 200 years past.

It is almost 10 in the morning here in Cape Town and it is the dead of winter. The rain alternates between downpour and deluge and, with no central heating, the doggies and I are tucked up in the bed with the mattress pad heater beneath us and a duvet topped by a boutis quilt, weighty and warm, on top of us.

The light is dim, more like immediate post-dawn than approaching noon, and the best news is the infamous Cape Doctor…that stiff and bracing wind so characteristic of these parts…has not decided to pay us a visit concurrent with the monsoon. I’ve never been fond of extreme weather, and one form or another at any given time is all my nerve will take with equanimity. I especially dislike heavy winds and coupling them with a torrential rain is my particular idea of hell.

But, ever the seeker of the silver lining, I will say this for today’s dim and soggy state: the wind is tolerable, there is no thunder, no lightning, and if I go outside for a bit of a stroll, I won’t get sunburned, only damp…and between the clothes dryer and a cupboard full of fat, fluffy towels, that is quickly and easily remedied…and without lasting ill effect.

But the doggies seem to have the right of it, tucked up warmly in the bed, snoozing the foul weather away. Perhaps I should join them…