Here comes Summer....

...and I'm not ready. After months and months of unsettled, unseasonable weather, the thermometer has hit the mid 30s, and I still have a wardrobe stocked with trousers and fleeces, and my drawers are full of sweaters. Tomorrow I shall get down the boxes from the top shelf in the hall cupboard and replace trousers with shorts and skirts, and sweaters with thin tops. I'll spend a morning washing woollies before packing them away until October, and probably have to fill a couple of bags with clothes for the charity shop when I find I can't fasten last year's waistbands. As most of them came from there in the first place, I shan't be much out of pocket. When I shall actually get to the Charity shop is another matter. The nearest weekend to the first of July is when the main body of tourists start to arrive. Parking space will be non existent as few of the blocks in the town have their own car park or underground garage. Blue zone street parking will fill with cars from Madrid getting dustier and dustier as the month progresses, the pile of pink parking tickets getting thicker under their windscreen wipers, as the parking girls make their rounds. The police tow truck is too busy trying to keep pace with the double parked cars and avert the frustration of the drivers of delivery vehicles who can't get through the congestion, to worry about towing away cars that don't have a valid parking ticket, but are not actually causing an obstruction. The local constabulary will get an extra 18 or 20 new recruits for the Summer season, whose sole responsibility will be to guard the yellow loading and unloading zones and keep them free from private vehicles and clear for deliveries. A visit to the PO to collect the mail will become a weekly rather than a daily event, and shopping will be restricted to an afternoon visit to the nearest supermarket when the hoards are on the beach or taking a siesta. Roll on September...and in the meantime I'll leave the car at home and use the bus pass...