We now return you to our normal weather

On Saturday the temperature took a sudden drop, back down to the merely warm and summery after three months of life on the surface of the sun. On Saturday night we fired up the barbeque, ate some burgers and chicken and then spent one of the most pleasant evenings I have yet experienced in Italy, keeping the fire going until midnight, watching the moon rise over the Etruscan hills bathing us in a cool light to go along with the newly cooled breezes off the Tyrhennian Sea.

Just sitting with a couple of friends, late into the night, staring into the fire and occasionally vocalising the Thoughts that came...bliss.

Or at least, if not actual bliss, then at least a gigantic mental and emotional sigh of relief that It is finally over.

The humidity was abruptly gone, as if some weather god has come home from vacation and, having discovered that he had left it running all summer, finally shut off the switch.

Over. It's over. It's finally OVER.

Thanks be to God!

Ah, Italian summer. Spending every night with the fan on full blast pointed directly at your face while curled around a pop bottle of frozen water wrapped in a tea towel; waking up every morning feeling like you have spent the previous day drinking heavily; walking an hour every day to and from the train station while covered in a thick layer of sweat and dust; daily feeling oily, filthy, stinking, slime-coated and beaten to a pulp.

This summer has made me realise that there are distinct differences between the constitution typical of someone from a Northern Temperate climate and that which has become, over a period of several millenia, accustomed to the Mediterranean climate. People like me, in other words, are just not meant to live here.

I don't remember ever being so miserable for so long.

For a while I thought I was going a bit mad, and at dinner on Sunday night with some friends (one of whom spent the summer in Winnipeg and Edmonton) I was informed that this was showing on the blog a little. In case I got annoying or boring, sorry.

One thing has become clear; I will not be spending another August in this country.