Like my home town in New Zealand has a long warm autumn, then suddenly falls off the cliff to the bitterly cold frosts, ice and snow of winter; Bermuda has done the opposite this year into summer.  Sorry to talk about the weather, but this year it was rainy, cooler, almost hoodie temperatures for ages into the first month of summer.  The water has taken a long time to warm up, and snorkelling was limited to about thirty minutes. Staying in longer put me in danger of being hypothermic.  What in Bermuda? ‘Wear your wetsuit’ says my lovely husband.  Well I still can’t get into it, with all the sitting about during Shelter in Place.  ‘I’m working on it’ I reply with a humph. Well by the time that happens, I won’t need it anymore.

It warmed up this week.  Boy did it.  Suddenly it’s twenty-eight degrees in the shade, but feels like thirty-one.  A slight breeze saves the day, but barely, as its only registering as three miles per hour.  Enough to move the grass, but not the trees.  I hung a wet towel out yesterday, and it was snap dried and crispy when I brought it in.  I find myself opening the freezer for no reason.  Surely I wanted something out of it, but no, I’ve realised it’s to feel the cold wave as the ice blasts out.  I don’t like running the air conditioning because it contributes to global warming, and my footprint is big enough with all the thousands of flying miles I’ve done.  But does that mean my overheated body temperature is adding just as much? I went into the TCD* last week and got zapped by their digital thermometer. I did look like I was melting so I can hardly blame them for thinking I had a temperature.

Lovely husband is working from home, and I’m delighted that he is finding out how hot it gets here in our tiny apartment.   Of course his ‘office’ area is in the coolest room in the house, which will help him stay at his desk for longer.  It’s also facing a boring wall, so there’s no distractions looking out the window at the hibiscus hedge and the aqua blue smooth water in the bay.  On one of those days last week, I went down to the Glass Beach near Dockyards. 

If you come to Bermuda, the glass beach is a fascinating beach, made up of all kinds of broken glass.  It’s in behind the block of blue Naval houses, with the entrance marked with a sign and decorative stairs down to the beach.  The area in behind the beach used to be a tip**, so all the glass bottles, which couldn’t be recycled back in those days, have fallen out of the bank and broken onto the beach.  The waves have taken the pieces off, and smoothed them, for wonderful multi coloured shapes, to be washed back in literally piles on the sand.  If you go there, make sure you take good solid sandals, the glass isn’t all smooth.  A pair of water shoes would be good if you planned on  swimming or snorkelling there too.  I haven’t braved that yet, as you all know, I’m most likely to cut myself.

I go for the fabulous glass.  Taking my time, picking out the perfect pieces, matched in colour and shape.  Then I do the right thing, and I put it all back.  I am fascinated by glass, and can actually make my own lead light windows, but don’t have any room here in Bermuda to do this.  It’s also kind of a winter hobby, and long periods of time with bright shiny glass, can’t be good for anyone in the heat. There’s just something about that noise when the glass cracks.  When I started lessons for leadlighting in New Zealand, I turned up on my first night with my hands covered in bandaids.  The students and the tutor had a good laugh, thinking I’d been practicing before I knew what I was doing.  What actually happened was earlier in the day an electrician visited to fix a light fitting.  I climbed up to loosen the screws holding the light shade in place, as he was getting what he needed out of his bag.  On loosening the third screw, the light shade sprang apart in five pieces.  It was broken and I had no idea.  I still don’t know how I did it, but I knew the pieces were going to drop straight onto that poor mans head, so I caught them.  All of them.  I was sliced and diced, but to this day I’m sure I saved him a brain injury.  Absolutely worth being the laughing stock of adult education!

So I digress, but please enjoy the glass beach pictures, and imagine running your hands through all that coloured glass sparkling on the beach beside the aqua marine back drop.  The waves sweep the glass out and roll it back, reminding me of the pebbles on New Zealand’s West Coast beaches. There was a wonderful thunderstorm threatening when I was there. Just lovely.

More soon – Sally

P.S. The winner of the virtual chocolate fish goes to Perci99. Not for the correct guess but for persevering with guesses! The noise was the magnet on my phone cover clicking as I walked!

* TCD – Traffic Control Department. Government Departments were taking temperatures before permitting entry with Shelter in Place, but now randomly take temperatures if the visitor looks ‘hot’ at their discretion.

**Tip – dump, refuse collection centre – where trash is taken.