Category Archives: weather

summer returns

07 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by in sevilla, spain, summer, weather

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Last Friday afternoon I took a taxi from the hospital to the Plaza Alfalfa, a square near my house, so that I could pick up the various drugs I needed at the pharmacy there. While inside the skies opened and this very unsummerlike scene left me stranded while Nog raced home to get umbrellas so I could get home as soon as possible without getting soaked through.

All that week up until Sunday the weather was lovely and fresh, with a couple of rainstorms to clean the air. But this week The Heat is back. At the moment the thermometer reads 32º in my livingroom but I refuse to turn on the airconditioning because another thing waiting for me when I got home was a 173€ electricity bill for August (!!!). I’m still in shock. That is just for one month! And I only used the aircon for maybe three hours a day in August. So for the rest of the summer I’m just going to sweat it out and look forward to the cooler weather to arrive. Though I could do without another rainy winter…

I give in!

15 Wednesday Jun 2011

Posted by in home, sevilla, summer, tapas, twitter, weather, work

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It’s too darn hot…

And yes, I know it’s not nearly as hot as it’s going to get (and bear in mind that when it says it’s 36º it’s usually a good 5º hotter than that in the centre of town) but Nog and I just got back from his first “dress rehearsal” Sevilla Walk, with our twitter pals @annalibera and @jorgeguitian, and I finally put on the AIR CONDITIONING. Because I can.

And man, does it ever feel good. Even taking the inside temp down from 31 to 28 feels amazing, especially after a nice cool refreshing shower. But I mostly did this because when I got in I saw that Azar had thrown up on my bed (just “water” but all over the clean sheets I’d just changed last night) and then I found him hiding underneat the bed  looking decidedly floppy. So I decided he needed a little cool down time, during this hottest part of the day.

I had hoped to hold out until July, but oh well. I shudder to think what every hour of centrally cooling down all 90 square metres of this place will cost, but I reckon that an hour at lunch time and an hour in the evening before bed should help get us through the worst of it. And I have to say that it feels so luxurious to be able to come home and be comfortable! I expect to feel just as amazed next winter when I don’t have to wear four layers and shiver in front of a space heater. Now I just have to figure out how to pay for this luxury.

To wit… the first run of Nog’s Sevilla Walk went well. Still some editing and fine tuning to do, but over-all I think Anna and Jorge enjoyed themselves. Afterwards we had some great tapas at La Giganta. Cheap too! All that food and two drinks each for just 8 euros a person…

central heating!

03 Thursday Feb 2011

Posted by in home, sevilla, weather

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OMG… this little tiny box on my wall is about to change my life. I haven’t had central heating since I lived in Bristol (1990-1992) and today I finally bit the bullet and turned the thing on. I’ve been wanting to save money but we’re going through a cold snap here, and I decided I have enough to deal with having a painful sprained ankle without also sitting here shivering away as I try to get some work done. So hang the expense! At least for today.

I’d much rather have this kind of aircon/heating system, with just one unit in the livingroom and another upstairs, but oh well. I am hoping that the double-glazed windows in the livingroom and my bedroom will help conserve heat (and cold air in summer). And anyhow, if the heat was shut off upstairs it would probably just go up the stairwell, so there is nothing for it but to heat the entire apartment. I was talking about this to Agustín last night (who has the wall unit system) and he said that if I set my thermostat to a low but comfortable temperature it should be cheaper to run it all day than to keep turning it off and on again. Given that it’s taken an hour for the temp here to go from 14º to 18º  he could have a point.  Once the place reaches 20º it’ll take less energy to maintain the heat than to turn it off and start from scratch again. I’m actually already feeling more comfortable at 18º but I guess it’ll be a question of trying out various combinations of space heaters and the central heating to see which is more economical, but right now I’m very glad to have this option.

Though I recall my friend Paco telling me how he hates his central heating because in summer cockroaches come out of the vents (!!!!!). But I already have a plan for that. One apartment I looked at during the search also had central heating and I noticed they had attached plastic mesh screens over all the vent openings, which was all I had to see to walk away and not take the place. So here’s hoping this won’t be necessary. According to an engineer friend who works for the water company, each and every house in the old centre of Sevilla is stuffed full of roaches. He had a few horror stories of breaking open walls to get at the pipes… but apparently they usually stay where it’s dark and damp. We’ll see what happens here.

But it’s such a fabulous place. Every day it feels a little more like home. Wish I could walk though…