Summer

It's the first of March, and that is officially the start of summer in India. The temperature has been heading upwards for a while already, the past couple of weeks have seen maximums around 36C. Nights are warmer too. In the middle of the cruel winter the mecury would dip as low as 5C, now it remains in the teens.

We've been air conditioner shopping. We're getting a unit fitted in the bedroom today, but the living room will have to wait a while. Since it is fairly spacious, and the cooling will be required during the hottest period of the day, two beefy (aka pricier) units are required to provide cooling. In the meantime the swimming pool makes a useful cooling device.

Like all electronic gadgets air conditioners come with their fair share of gimmickry. Ionizers that, according to the salesman, provide more oxygen. If true this would be worrying, stuff starts spontaneously combusting if you raise the oxygen levels too high. Fortunately ionizers in India are as effective as their brethren in the much missed innovations catalogue. Other interesting features are multiple setting memories: each family member can store there own favoured temperature and fight it out with a convenient 'one button' action. As opposed to just tapping in a new temperatue to annoy everyone else instead.

The India-England test series has begun. I'm not too hopeful of England's chances after the recent spate of injuries. They're currently 157-4 at tea on the first day - that's the kind of score that can go very wrong with a few quick wickets. Let's hope they reach the end of play without too much drama...

The picture is of my mum and dad's garden yesterday. It wasn't summer in India yesterday, it doesn't look like it was summer in Aberdeenshire either.