Blowing Hot and Cold

As residents of Larnaca, we often hear from visitors how lucky we are to have such lovely, hot weather most of the year round, but unless someone lives here, they cannot appreciate the balancing act that our climate presents.

First of all, we don't really have 'seasons'. It's more like one and half seasons – one that is comprised of unending months of hot to sweltering heat, and a half season that is a cross between autumn and winter and can give us anything from slightly cold to bone chilling temperatures. And it seems we are not very adept at coping with either properly…

Yes, it's great to live on a sunshine island, and lounging around on beaches all day doing nothing in the heat is a lovely idea, but when you live a real life in it and have to do boring, 'lifey' things - such as going to work and food shopping - it becomes very uncomfortable, which visitors just can't comprehend. I, like many others spend the day going from the car to air conditioned interiors and back to the car again trying all the while not to end up an unsightly sweaty mass… but at least everyone else is sweating with me so it's not social suicide to turn up dripping from the heat!

But the thing that really throws me is the extreme, sudden change from hot to cold to hot. One minute it seems like summer is literally never going to end after starting in May and dragging on till the start of December, then it hits us with the force of a snowball. There we are moaning that we have had enough of the heat, yearning for winter clothes, reminding ourselves that maybe we should start changing our wardrobes round, then boom… icicles on our toes. Then the mad scramble ensues to grab whatever cardigan is at the front of the wardrobe and the strange feeling of moving from sandals to closed shoes, a big adjustment to make in the face of the violent and sudden drop in temperature.

It happens the other way round too. One minute we are comfortably and happily able to take a stroll in reasonable temperatures, then the next day the sun is out in full force and walking anywhere further than to the car – to take us to our next air conditioned interior (see above!) – is to risk total skin melt-off. The weather in Cyprus never eases us in gently, it just changes in the space of 24 hours.

I find that the worse thing is trying to keep children the right temperature; how many layers in the cold, fan or air-con in the heat? As our houses don't seem to be designed for either kinds of weather, this balancing act with little ones is a very difficult one and I never feel I have it quite right.

So, I am not sure if I prefer sweaty patches or icicles… but I would like a bit of adjustment time either way!