Exhausted. I’m totally cream crackered.

There are two types of day in Estepona in July.

Very warm and very humid and

when the wind blows from North Africa.

My best bet is that it’s called leveche or even lebeche (although it would be pronounced as if the v was a b in a lot of cases).

And it comes up the passage until it meets our kitchen window or Lorraine’s office window.

And it’s like having the world’s biggest hair dryer pointed towards you.

Temperatures frequently exceed 40C and we had three days like this last weekend and early in the week.

If we had any sense at all we would just close the shutters, turn off the computers and slump on the sofas with the AC cranked to high until it finishes.

But we’re not sensible. Clients and deadlines won’t LET you be sensible so you struggle your way on.

A side street in Frigiliana. Photo by yours truly.

Lorraine – bless her – spent the entire week with a sheen of sweat (sorry – old adage. Pigs sweat, horses perspire and ladies glow. Well she was glowing like a pig…).

And when nighttime temperatures get DOWN to around 30C by dawn you don’t get a good night’s sleep either.

Then there’s humid.

After generally 2-3 days the leveche blows itself out and this time of year is replaced by upper 20C/low 30C temperatures.

And nighttime gets down to under 25C.

But all too often the humidity levels spike which means that it’s no more comfortable than before.

Last week was seriously busy running to keep still so having cracked all the potentially expensive deadlines I found myself with lots to do and no energy whatsoever.

And we had a day out last Friday (el viernes pasado – just me showing off again) courtesy of our former landlady and now friend Sam and her boyfriend Rafael.

Long suffering readers will know of my beer enthusiasm and we’d been chatting to Sam over lunch a few weeks ago about a brewery/beer shop called La Domadora y el Leon.

The (female) tamer and the lion in English. NO idea where that came from.

I bet there’s a good back story there somewhere.

And – ostensibly – it’s in Malaga. Well that’s what the address says.

Well, clever clogs here was talking about this when Sam volunteered that she was having to go to Malaga and if we went with her she’d take us there.

Never knowingly refusing an offer like that we readily agreed.

Second thoughts occurred last Thursday evening.

I’d thought to check it’s location on the map to discover that Frigiliana was about as close to Malaga as Estepona is to Malaga, but the other side.

If I’d thought about it the fact that our address is Estepona, Malaga might have been a bit of a giveaway…

But it hadn’t so I thought it good manners to give her the option of not going after all.

The long and the short of it was that the original reason for the trip to Malaga had itself been moved so she and Rafa were going to a DIY store instead so we could still do it.

So off we went on the Friday morning.

We had a super day out. Drove through the resident’s only street through the village (oops) and with the help of telephone directions we found the store.

If we go back in a few weeks we might be able to have a beer there but they’re in the middle of painting and decorating but we all stood in the cold room and chatted while selecting the odd case or two to take away.

Definitely recommend – assuming you’re in the area of course – and they directed us to a tapas bar in the centre of the village for lunch and one (or two) of their beers.

By which time it’s mid afternoon and we’ve a 1.5-2 hour drive back so the DIY detour was cancelled.

Sorry Rafa but I think we all had a good time…

It’s what happens when you get caught up with this crazy English couple with the fount of anecdotes.

So that was a great day but I woke up exhausted and with la leveche on the Saturday morning.

Going out on a Friday made Saturday seem like Sunday.

Mental disconnect and God knows what day Sunday felt like but the hot wind seriously undid any good effect of a three day weekend.

Okay. Slight diversion to sort out a set of accounts that had exported with “issues”. I HATE Word. Next time I’ll export it to Excel, assuming there is a next time.

Headache to go with the exhaustion. It’s enough to make you exhausted.

Right.

Teatime.

Oh, and I’ve:

• changed my medications routine to reduce another painkiller
• got an additional Bluetooth keyboard
• changed the computer set up

Any of which on their own would upset my back and neck.

Oh, and my new keyboard is a Spanish keyboard but the keys work as if it was an English keyboard despite what the symbol is on the keys themselves.

Really need to find time to work out if I can toggle from one to the other. Upside down question marks and exclamation marks and an ‘n’ with a tilde could come in handy sometime!

And if I wanted the English character set I’d still have it on the laptop’s built in keyboard.

Back to changes.

I remember a while ago talking about altering only one variable at a time because otherwise differentiating individual causes and effects is nearly impossible.

So do as I say, not as I do. Got it?

Normally (recently) I’ve been able to depend on the restorative power of the morning shower to put me back on the straight and narrow.

But this morning, nada.

And so today has been a bit of a write off, except for seeing our bank manager, the accounts mentioned above and writing the blog.

But little else. Exhausted.

For which, if any clients are reading this, I apologise.

My health is one of the prime reasons for moving here and the last thing I need is to compromise on that.

Let it all calm down. I’m not aware we have any gas bottles being delivered soon. Make sure I do all the walking. Have a nap if I need it.

In other words, look after myself. Because I’ll be no use to anyone if I don’t.

And on that profound note it’s time to go practice mi español. Hasta la proxima semana.