Mrs O and I are off for a long weekend in southern Spain tomorrow. We're doing a greatest-hits tour of the places we know well - Jerez and Cadiz. I adore Andalusia; it's so vital and so brutal. We've never been there this early in the year, and it's going to be bastard-hot.
We normally head down to Al-Andalus in late September at the earliest. Even then it's generally scorching. I've a photo from Jerez of one of those giant thermometers you get outside pharmacies (pharmacists, why?). It reads 39 degrees. So presumably in August it's like sitting in an inglenook fireplace whilst dressed like a Norwegian trawler man. Oh, well, the hotel has a pool, and Cadiz is on the Atlantic, so what's the worst that can happen to a pasty London Irish weed, comme moi?
The greatest pleasure on Earth has to be cowering from the relentless heat of an Andalusian day until the sun begins its descent and then heading off to a sheltered bar somewhere that has a view of the sea or a river and sipping a freezing-cold fino sherry. The astringent quality slakes the thirst no nothing else I've ever quaffed. Suddenly, the limbs lighten and the brain springs back into life for a few hours. Colours appear more vivid and you just want to embrace life. Necking Guinness whilst listening to sean nos in a dark pub in the west of Ireland is fantastic, but it doesn't get close to this. Nosirree.
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