Summertime,.....

....and the living is easy."

An interesting fact to kick off this post - George Gershwin wrote "Porgy and Bess" here in Charleston. On top of that, a poet friend of his Dubois Hayward who wrote the novel 'Porgy' that this was obviously based on, also lived in Charleston. Apparently, you can see his house downtown on one of the poet walks that they have here (amongst the ghost walks, the art walks and the drunken walks!). Anyway, with yesterday being June 21st - longest day of the year and the official start of summer, i had the joys of sweltering heat and humidity to look forward to. Well, not so much to look forward to - as its been here already. More a sense of being resigned to - at least until i head back to the UK at the height of summer. Actually, thinking about it, summer is only six days long in the UK - June 21st is the official start of summer, June 24th is midsummer day - and, well, you can work out the rest yourself.

With this being my second summer here, i feel im a bit more acclimatised that i was last year - by a bit more, i mean in the sense that i can actually walk through the heat and humidity without feeling like i'm going to pass out at a moment's notice, or like i've been hit by a steam train. I'm well and truly becoming American in the sense that i appreciate air-conditiong a lot more - and am also glad that i live a mere five minute walk downtown. Any more and i would probably lose half a stone of sweat going to and from work every day. So, whilst the living is perhaps, not quite so easy, it's a damn sight more tolerable in 2006 than it was in 2005.