A Most Shivering June

It has been unpleasantly cold here this past week or two. I mean 0 Celsius in the mornings and that means 32 Fahrenheit! Today the computer told me that it was 34 degrees and added “feels like 27”. Now this is confusing since there are green leaves on the trees and flowers are still blooming. But with no central heat in the flats this is just plain cold for us.

You can see that some trees in the back have lost their leaves, but so many are still green and full. This is the view from our office window early this morning.

We bundle up to go into the office (shirt, sweater, jacket, coat)and when we get home we put on a couple of layers of shirts, (I wear my checked flannel shirt every single day), don our sweat suits and put a blanket over our legs when we sit down. Now we are tough and we can take it, but still, it gives us something to complain about. The day time temps get up to the 50’s and that’s not bad but still chilly.

This week, Thursday and Friday our heater evidently tripped our circuit breaker and would not be repaired so we were without power for a day, a night, and a day. Now that was uncomfortable. We got our candles and lanterns out for the evening and bundled up and went to sleep early Thursday night. We still had hot water in our geyser (hot water tank) so we could shower, thank goodness. The Wrights were out of town so I went over there to dry and curl my hair. The electrician replaced the circuit breaker since we have had so much trouble with that, and we have been slowly heating the place back up since then.

I have to continually count my blessings, though, knowing that thousand of Africans are having to deal with the cold weather in tiny houses, some made of tin, with no electricity at all. There is a little group of homeless people who live under the street near here and in the mornings as we drive to the office we see them bundled up with a little fire burning and sitting in the sunshine trying to warm themselves.

My troubles are so insignificant. My blessings so great. A little cold weather is just that. I am grateful for the sunshine to warm them and cheer me in this beautiful place.