Cold Sunshine

Dellaren is a town of extremities both with the people and the weather, the summers are scotching hot and the winters bitterly cold. There only seems to be only two seasons with only a slight graduation between them, some people would argue differently however and say that winter only lasts a few short weeks.

In the summer time it is hot and dry, being out in the middle of no where, they don't get the humidity that you find closer to the coast. The days can get up to 45 degrees Celsius, with little relief during the nights.

In the shop on these days all we have to battle the temperature is the big old double brick building and an ancient fan which has probably been there since 1938 when the building was constructed, it is surprising how good a job it does, when all else fails we can at least go out and jump into the pool out the back.

Now it is winter and it is bitterly cold, the nights here have been getting down to about -5 degrees with the days warming up slightly, inside the shop the building holds a constant temperature between 10 and 12 degrees, all day, everyday.

We don't bother heating it as it would be quite a task to accomplish, with 13ft ceilings and plenty of cracks in the walls, most we have managed to fill, old style air vents and an open door which the wind blows in.

So my only defence is layers, lots and lots of layers, I look like the michelin man! If someone pushed me over I would either bounce straight back up again or need someone to pick me up!

I get a lot of comments about the weather, I understand that for the most part it is a topic of conversation, I use it all the time to try and strike a conversation, most of the time it seems that our customers just say it for the sake of making a noise, with no desire to actually have a chat, or they are taking the piss out of me, because I am not from here, and obviously it doesn't get cold anywhere else in the world.

So while I cannot hide out in hibernation, I make the most of it and try to enjoy what I can. Ignoring the fact that while the sun shines in Dellaren, it is not cold. Apparently.