Safety blanket

I am a man on a mission, and the name of the mission is Mission P.
The reason why and the ill hidden pun will become clear shortly.

Cape Town is moving into autumn. At least, that is what the calendar tells us, because I don't notice it. By my standards it would still be Summer. Days are still clear, hardly a cloud in the sky and the sun is blazing. Yesterday was the worst day of all. Temperatures peaked at 45C and it hardly cooled down in the evening.
Initially I hadn't noticed that it was that hot. I jumped into Shafeeka and hit the road. We ended up in beautiful Stellenbosch, a short hours drive from my front door. Shafeeka transformed from a VW Golf into a little oven on wheels because man it was hot on the road. Shafeeka doesn't have airco (that's from after her time, don't tell her because it upsets her) so I usually open the window to cool down. It is the best feeling, normally. This time there was little to no ocean breeze to cool things down, and the air coming in felt like a hairdryer blowing in my face. Closing the car window would make it worse of course, so I could only power through.

In Stellenbosch I just parked somewhere randomly and started walking around. I love exploring a town like this. In Europe it is as easy as pie, you park around the biggest church or market square and off you go. Why the market square? Well that is usually the centre of the town, and all major roads lead towards it. You see, most places that date back a while are all built like wagon wheels: market and or church in the middle, main roads leading from the outside to the centre square and all that. The Medieval design you know. Fair enough, but in the middle ages they had nomads here. Hunter gatherer tribes, moving around. They didn't really build anything. If three lumps of clay would have been placed on top of each other, that would have been considered a brick watchtower. So certainly no wagon wheel designs for cities. Usually towns here are just one main road, fanning out in a couple of side roads. And they are so small that you have to start breaking 2 kms before the first houses or you'll only stand still at the other side of town. Paarl, Ceres, Franschoek, Muizenberg, Simon's town,... all the same thing. So I was quite happy to see that Stellenbosch was a bit different.
I had deliberately aimed for the Stellenbosch university. The campus is stunning. Check out the pictures, isn't that a campus where you would like to (pretend to) study?

It was only when I walked around that I noticed how hot it was because I had less energy than usual. I scurried around from left to right, looking for cool liquids to drink. Smoothies, milkshakes, juices, water, I drank it all. I felt like a water balloon about to burst. But I seemed to transpire it all. In spite of the vast amounts of fluids I downed, not a drop of fluid would ehm, dawn down there.
Hence Mission P. I kept drinking in the hope that some moist would make it to my kidneys. I had to switch to beer to make it happen, but it worked.

So yesterday must have been the hottest day since I came here, and the hottest day for Capetonians in a long time too. Usually the evening cools down nicely thanks to an ocean breeze.
A lot of houses, and car owners, count on this breeze because they don't have an airco installed. Nor a central heating for that matter. This time, the night did not cool down at all.
It must have been around 35 degrees in the middle of the night. Colleagues told me this morning how they moved to their basement to sleep. Deprived of a basement, most of them just had a tough night like me.

After a successful Mission P, I opted for a Mission ZZZ. Window open, no sheet, that's how this cat normally sleeps. Not possible, too hot. I don't have a fan, and didn't have any clothes to take off any more. So the experiments started. I first took a cold shower. Helped a bit, and only for a short while. Then drinks with lots of ice. Not so much. New steps had to be taken, but it was hard to think of better ideas with the drowziness of half sleep in my head. I decided to soak a big towel with cold water and hang it on a rack next to my bed. Theory: the coolness of the wet towel would radiate on me, it would absorb the vicious heat and overall get rid of the deprivation of sleep. Hail the towel! Practise: not so much. So there I was, half awake, feeling too hot with a wet towel dripping next to me. Touching it felt nice. So I touched it some more. I don't know if I first started hugging it or not, but the soaking wet towel ended up draped over my entire
body. That's right, I slept under a cold wet towel, in my bed. And it worked. Laugh all you want, it improved the situation. I even ended up wetting the towel again (in the sink, not Mission P)
because it felt so good.
Not a feat I'd like to repeat. I added a big fat fan to my shopping list.

Luckily, tonight is a lot cooler. So I'me hit the sack.

yours,

W.