The cool change

Last night after a couple of hours enjoying the sun I found myself sitting in a beach side bar surrounded by many of my new found Italian friends, GM was providing the tunes, we were all six shades darker than two months ago and many of us had that sleepy eyed look of time spent in the sea air (or as in my case from getting home at a ridiculous hour the night before and having to get up and go to work at an early hour with a small devil playing death metal in your head.)  Towards the end of the evening for the first time there was a chill in the air that necessitated an additional layer – oh horror! does this mean the end of the summer?

When I returned from the UK I found my little part of Italy experiencing a bit of a heat wave with temperatures reaching the high 30s.  Treviso felt like a ghost town with many of the businesses shut for the holidays and most of the residents taking to either the mountains or the beach.   Having lived in Australia these past few years I’m used to high summer temperatures but not the humidity.  While in Melbourne I’m happy as Larry with temperatures in the mid thirties here the humidity makes it feel ten degrees hotter but at least you don’t feel as if your eyelids are slowly burning off your face, which is one of the delights of a Melbourne heat wave.  So with temperatures reaching the stupidly high, an empty town and newly back from the traumas of a week with family there was not much else to do but make a start on the small library that I had managed to amass in one week. 

Since leaving university many (we won’t mention how many) years ago I have not had a lazy summer, having always found myself working through the hottest months.  So this summer has been quite a revelation.  While this year has been a million miles away from my usual summer of bands, backyard barbies and festivals I have discovered the benefits of, well, not doing very much.  The long, lazy hot days have been so enjoyable that I can’t bear the thought of them ending.  I hope there is another little burst of summer before the autumn kicks in.

By the end of the week the trickle of residents returning turned into a flood and suddenly Treviso was full again.  While I really enjoyed my half week of solitary idling it was good to see friends again all relaxed and with the shininess that comes from lazing in the sun.  That first evening a bunch of us got together for drinks and food, talk was of our summer adventures, coming plans and the imminent start of work.  There was music in the piazza and although the evening was still gloriously balmy the shops were full of autumn fashions.  The nights will soon begin to get darker and the weather cooler, more than at any time in my life I wish the summer wouldn’t end.