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Sweat is trickling along my shoulder blades and between my breasts, prickly heat raised along my arms. It is sticky, humid, outside a breeze stirs but all that is blowing is hot air. The brief interlude of rain earlier in the afternoon has only raised the heat. This situation is not helped by an intensive session of elliptical walker and resistance bands, cooling down will take a while.

The bout of exercise was really to counteract the after effects of a late lunch of stewed chicken and red beans, admittedly not cooked at home. The heat of the day negated any desire to spend time in the kitchen, which incidentally gets heat reflected from the roof next door. At first there’d been some guilt, of late the kitchen has seen little cooking and a combination of take out boxes or quickie meals cobbled together. Cereal can fill many roles and sadly, I’ve let it. Crap that; the chicken quietly thawing on the sink was unceremoniously bunged back into the fridge, much to the disgust of the hound, living in hope that it would have been forgotten upon hearing the jingle of house keys knocking against the car key. Sadly for him, mummy remembered and returned to safely tuck it away, maybe tomorrow.

The heat in the car almost derailed the process, even with the air con cranked up, the steering wheel was not pleasant and the sun beating mercilessly down through the windscreen caused a vampire like hissing and thoughts of shriveling up and blowing away as dust. This is when you know you’ve become an old geezer; the temperature gauge read 34.5 degrees outside. I know it wasn’t that hot on a regular basis when I was a kid, 34 degrees was usually a high, of late, it’s the standard. Of course this, the last weekend before school re-opens would either have been spent outside running around or on the beach, burning to a crispy brown one last time. Now, my thoughts turned to swiftly acquiring the goods and returning home and maybe eating in the shower, the only cool room in the house!

The roads were strangely empty for a long weekend, the only place with lots of cars, the supermarket car park, stocking up for school? Maybe everyone was still in Tobago, Great Race weekend they’d all be trying to get back today. Lot’s of people in Creole Cuisine, seems none of wanted to cook in the heat, at 2:00 however, the choices limited having been raided by the smart people who’d decided earlier to err on the side of no stress Sunday lunch. Goods in hand, back into the car hoping that it had not had time to heat up again. No digressions, it was straight home out of the sun again. The stewed chicken was tender, nicely browned, the beans floury, with lashings of Allana Stuart’s pimento sauce it made a lovely meal. If you’ve never had it, pimento sauce is a piquant sauce with body, made from flavour not hot peppers. It adds a little kick that enhances the flavour of the food without being overpowering like pepper sauce.

It is still hot, even as night falls and the day’s heat slowly relieved by a cooling breeze. It is amazing that the hound, covered in thick fur still hopes that we will play ball, I cannot believe that he wants to run around. He is panting in the heat, his water bucket supplemented by the occasional ice cube as a treat. All I want to do is veg, not moving with my book for company. He’ll have to settle for lying in front of the fan. Tomorrow is Independence Day, happy 47th Trinidad and Tobago!