SUMMER ROUTINE

It hasn’t rained for a while and everything is very dry. The temperature is easily 35Cº (95Fº) and we’ve slowed down, living life in the shade, away from the glare. In the mornings the rays from the white-hot sun slant sideways across the hill in front of our house and illuminate five tall palm-trees, planted in a row. The fronds catch the breeze from the sea in the far distance and shiver and tremble, making the treetops seem hung with lights, as if for Christmas.

I watch this from my seat at the big table on the veranda where I sit under the slowly turning fan, dogs rummaging around me. They run, pant, growl, drink water noisily until Loki sticks his big paws into the bowl and splashes with gusto until only a brackish puddle remain. Then they pass out and sleep for while on the cool stone floor. Victor sits across from me and we’re both writing in our journals, a habit which we’ve kept up since the beginning of this year. 

Our house faces SSE and until noon our pool has no shade at all, but in the afternoon, it offers a delicious and shady alternative to the lingering heat. Then we put on our bathing suits and lower ourselves into the surprisingly cold water. The dogs run around in anticipation, waiting for the games to start. Zaffy’s favorite is ‘fetch’. She drops a worn tennis ball at one end of the pool and runs around to the other, waiting for the throw. 

She’s totally intent on the ball and either catches it in her jaws with “effortless superiority” we say, repeating an old Balliol (College, Oxford) joke, or runs like a bullet down the shadowed garden path to fetch it. Loki is not interested in running after the ball. His thing is water. Since he was little, he’s been fascinated with the way water runs downhill and will follow a trickle with a frowned look of concentration on his big, dark face. When Oswaldo goes into the pool and squirt jets of water in a high arc at him, Loki goes bananas, tripping from side to side and barking madly, until he’s all wet and his red tongue dangling from his mouth.

Afterwards we dry up, feed the dogs, and go sit outside looking at the sky, wondering whether it will rain anytime soon. The dogs are tired now and lie panting at our feet. Oswaldo fetches a bottle of rosé, which we sip, chatting about this and that, nibbling on a snack of something. 

 

“Can I put the bottle away now?” asks Oswaldo, trying to stick to our pandemic ‘rule’ of no more than two small glasses per night 

 

“I’ll have just a tiny bit more,” I say, showing with my finger how much and wanting to prolong the moment. 

 

Sometimes, when the mosquitos leave us alone, we sit in the gathering dusk until it’s so dark we cannot see each other anymore. (Sometimes we give in and just finish the bottle). Then we get up and go inside, turn on the lights and the air-conditioning and think about what to make for dinner.