Lazy summer

I am between periods during which I need to do stuff so I am "aestivating". It's like hibernating, but done in the summer. 

This word was new to me and here's how I found out about it. I'd noticed a line of fence posts near home and the top of each was covered in tiny snails, apparently basking in the heat. 

This puzzled me as I assumed they would be roasting up there in the hot air, which last week was as high as 36C (97F), especially as the posts are made of metal, which also gets hot.

So I asked on Facebook. My agronomist friend Amanda explained that the snails are aestivating. The dry heat is no good for them so, in a similar way to animals who hibernate to escape winter's cold and lean fare, they climb above the warm ground and stick to a post like this for the opposite reason, till the weather gets cool and wet again, just how they like it, and they wake from their torpor. The pale shell colour helps reflect the heat.

Aestivating is similar to what I'm doing to beat the scorching summer I wrote about last week. I'm just taking it easy in the shade, a lazy staycation. 

Green pass

I have just downloaded my Green Pass since it's over 15 days since my first Covid vaccination. This is the document needed here in Italy and in much of the European Union to do anything more than just your shopping. I was steeling myself for a battle with the ministry website but instead it took just five minutes, which is a huge relief! 

Now I can go to the cinema, eat out, take a train, go to the gym, visit a museum, drink in some low dive... 

Actually, that sounds too active right now so I think I'll carry on aestivating for a bit.

 

Sean Lock

For British readers. I was sorry to hear of the death at only 58 of comedian Sean Lock. His brilliantly dark and surreal radio comedy Fifteen Storeys High caught my attention in the late 1990s and his  acerbic wit on panel shows since was often screamingly funny. I find laughing at life is one of the best ways to get by and people like this show us how it's done.

A dip in the archives

Here's a post from five years ago when I had an altogether different summer experience, in the far north of Scotland. No chance of overheating as it was 15 - 20 C (60-68 F). Fascinating 3000-5000 year-old villages, oil rigs, warships, lighthouses and Britain's most beautiful cathedral.

Andro in Orkney

 

Sue x

 

Cari lettori italiani

Non ho ancora avuto una reazione dai lettori italiani a questo blog e dunque non sono convinta che valga la pena di scrivere un paragrafo in italiano ogni volta che creo un nuovo post qui. 

Oggi ho scaricato il Green Pass e la vita dovrebbe diventare più facile da questo punto.

Cinque anni fa ho scritto del viaggio che ho fatto alle Orcadi. Qui c'è una foto della cappella italiana lì che e stata costruita da prigionieri italiani durante la seconda guerra mondiale. Costruita con pochissimo, è un testamento alla resilienza dello spirito umano. Ecco la pagina da Wikipedia: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappella_italiana

 

Sue x