A slight respite. After the heat wave upon heat wave of the last few weeks, we’ve had a day, while not being cold, has been definitely less hot.

I am not really sure that 32 to 33°C can be described as cool but in the context of up to 40°C days it probably is, relatively.

Which is good.

Yesterday felt muggy as well as exceptionally hot and dragging yourself around in weather like that is hard going.

It’s also getting noticeably darker in the mornings and the evenings as the day length reduces.

So not only less heat but less time for it to be warming.

And hopefully less time for the sweat to trickle from my hair to down my back.

This feels really yucky. As does the times when one side suddenly starts to sweat profusely.

I am now trying to experiment with the windows.

There I was sitting here getting more and more sticky and I thought, well why not try opening one of the windows on the latch and see what happened to the temperature and humidity?

Bizarrely in the five minutes since, it has neither gone up nor down in either.

But it does at least feel like a small breeze is making its way around the room. It’s a start…

Not much of one. I have been distracted and ten minutes later temperature and humidity remain as they were.

Didn’t get to the paseo after I wrote the blog but here’s some work in progress from earlier in the week. Photo by author

Could be worse I suppose.

From the discussions we’ve had over the last few days, working outside in these temperatures is horrendous.

And yes the wind causing most of the damage is the one I mentioned last week called the Terral.

We did have the most bizarre conversation at lunch yesterday.

It may or may not be a consequence of not quite understanding the Spanish that we’ve encouraged people to talk to us.

I think we were both quite understanding about one of the (young) waiters (not waitress) and the word bikini but where chocolates came into it we’re not quite sure.

At least we think the word was “bombones” in Español. And a quick almost search in my dictionary doesn’t suggest anything too similar. ..

The mind boggles.

A slight respite.

Work-wise things are moving on but occasionally they move on in very unusual fashion.

Like the request for agent access to a client’s records that fail because of the difference between an address in the client records and no such address in the application.

It does not ask for that information so why it should imagine it was different is anybody’s guess but after two failed attempts we’ve now altered it.

And we’re just waiting the 72 hours for the change to go live before we try again.

This one could run and run and we have had to extend a filing deadline in the hope that the information becomes available.

If it doesn’t, God knows what I will do because you can’t extend the filing deadline again. That was made very clear.

20 minutes later this time and the temperature has gone up by 0.1 of a degree.

Have you been reading about the strange exploits of AI under test conditions?

And should we find this worrying or amusing? A test version of ChatGPT escaped from a control environment, made its way into the outside world, and basically attempted to mug another AI.

How is it that a week ago I’d never heard of guardrails in computing but now I’ve come across it three or four times in a week?

And does it work? I suppose the thing that worries me most is that it would only be a matter of time before somebody does this maliciously.

Oh my God. Not what I said. Which was: Or already has…

Actually can’t fault it though.

So let’s move on to something of potential interest in Estepona. Something that doesn’t involve AI or computers I hope.

El Certamen Mundial Del Jamón ‘Popi’ Ciudad de Estepona, 2026.

Yes, the World Championship of Ham. Starts Friday on the Paseo Maritimo and lasts for ten days.

And if I’m really lucky they will have set up enough by tonight to get the odd photo or two ready.

The bloody Americans have the Baseball World Series when they are just about the only people who play it and we here in Spain have the World Festival of Ham.

I know which one I prefer.

And how do you become a judge in such a competition? Well our good friend AI shows us the way.

It’s almost half an hour later.

I’ve actually given up with the experiment of opening windows and turned on the AC.

Which has at least made me feel slightly more comfortable and slightly less sweaty.

A slight respite.

And I think I’m gonna end this week’s post here because I’m too knackered after all the heat this last week.

Hasta luego. Hasta la semana que viene.

I think it’s Greek pita for dinner tonight. Yum, yum, yum!