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INTERESTING ARTICLES Mad Dogs and Englishmen . . . The novelty of the sun . . . it does wear off. I remember as a child going on holiday with my parents to places like Cyprus and the Greek Islands. "Spotting the Brit" wasn't the hardest thing to do and we used to observe the newly arrived towards the end of our holiday, we were all brown and the newbies were white as snow (just like us two weeks prior).
Living in Andalucia full time soon changed all of that; the heat in the mountains tends to be a "dry" heat unlike nearer the coast where there is more humidity. We observed neighbours retiring for the daily siesta at around 3:30 pm and rising again around 6:00 pm. I must say that the neighbours are Spanish and the Spanish know what they are doing when it comes to the sun. Sometimes the heat becomes simply unbearable even to the point where it becomes dangerous to work outdoors for any length of time, the siesta is a fantastic aspect of Spanish life - it serves a purpose. Working in the afternoon heat really does tire you out and before you know it your in front of the TV falling asleep. We have become accustomed to the sun and the heat, when we have the relatives over it is quite obvious who lives here all year round . . . we are sitting under the pergola enjoying the shade and the rest of the family and friends are happily sizzling away in the heat. The sun cream comes out during the day and the after-sun comes out at night, showers have to be luke warm and the bed sheets feel like sandpaper . . . then the next day it's the same thing all over again. The
Spanish point of view on all this strange activity is that the English
are simply crazy, accompanied by the fact they think we do everything
the wrong way around, side of the road, steering wheel, eating early,
etc seeing the rest of our family baking themselves when they should
be in the cool of the cave just adds confirmation to this opinion.
All that said, friends and relatives are here on "holiday"
and it's all new, sunny and hot so why not! Article
written by Iain Macdonald |
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The
fact that England doesn't get much sunshine or heat seems to be
the main factor for the Brit enjoying the midday sun. It appears
that we have this overwhelming urge to get brown as quickly as possible
and expose ourselves to every sunshine ray available. Moving into
corners of patio's to catch that last sunny patch before it disappears
for the day or adjusting clothing the get the white patches started
on their way to becoming golden brown. Quite extraordinary.