Saturday, July 4/2020

Feels like the hottest day so far. And when we look at the Accuweather app it confirms our perception. Heat warning. Currently 40. Except that our wall thermometer outside the door only says 32, and am more inclined to trust it than Accuweather. The other day the shopkeeper round the corner was cheerfully warning us that the temperatures would be in the forties in July, but it sounded like the bragging cum threatening that Canadians from Northwest Ontario and the Prairies engage in when they say the local temperatures fall to minus 40. They do, but not for extended periods or even every year. 

Quick trip to the shop - about three minutes away - for water, ice cream and a couple of bottles of beer. Shop closed on Sunday and the water probably wouldn’t have lasted. Keep one four litre container in the fridge. 

Our street dead quiet. It’s village like anyway, with most of the business activity in the centre of the old city while we’re near the southern wall, but today there is a little bit of bird sound and a faint distant rooster crowing. Not a human in sight - they’re all inside with the air conditioning on. Even the street cats have disappeared, though none of them are house cats.

The cats do appear later, though, once the long shadows make more shade. And more importantly once they have sensed that the woman across the road is going to bring them some food, though goodness knows how they know that as she doesn’t do it daily and there’s no set time.