How to work in the pits of hell
As the heat hits more than 36 degrees Celsius, it gets harder still to get the work done. The working days just have to start earlier. Welcome to another lesson as a digital nomad in the summer heat.
- Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
And lizards too. At least the ones I can see scurry around on the terrasse and in the dry ground where small cracks have been opening the last days. While some might remember the warning as the title of a 1970 live album by the singer Joe Cocker, the saying is believed to be coined by the writer Rudyard Kipling, the creator of Mowgli and Baloo, that most of us have seen in the Disney animated movie The Jungle Book. The British writer grew up in India and must have known one or two things about the heat.
Me too.
Or at least I am learning the hard way.
The hell weather continues
The last week have hit 33-34 degrees Celcius. Today it hit 36 degrees. In the sun we are around 42 degrees. And in the days to come, if we are to believe the weather forecast will reach 36-37 degrees. In Rome some 60 plus km from here, they have seen a man die from sunstroke. And it doesn’t seem to get better in the coming days or weeks.
And I do have a lot to learn in order to cope with it. If that is at all physically possible.
Not only am I born in Greenland, where the most extreme I have tried was around 43 degrees Celsius. Minus that is. And I don’t think it helps a whole lot that I am a big guy by most standards. A little more than two meters tall and on the north side of 116 kg. Most of the Italian men that I have seen around here are not only smaller, but they are also skinny as well. And they seem to endure the heat better than me.
That might not have been that much of a problem if I could spend my time as if I was vacation lounging by the pool or seeking refuge inside of café with something cool in a glass or a mug. But I have a lot to do here, before my kid, his partner and my grandkid comes to visit us in a couple of days. So, slacking off is not an option.
That means that my lovely wife has just taken off in the cabriolet for a beach somewhere, whereas I remain here in front of my MacBook. She by the way has no problems with the heat. On the contrary.
Self-pity doesn’t help. Much
The mastiff normally begging to be outside is trying to get into the cooler kitchen any chance she gets. Otherwise, she’d be whining and panting at the same time, trying to drown out the cicadas’ concert. So right now, she is inside, where it’s only 26 degrees. Before this I would say that would be warm.
A wild guess is that I don’t have to mention that this Italian country house is not equipped with air condition. The stone walls are about half a meter thick, so it does keep a lower temperature inside.
And to top off me sweating in front of the laptop there is one bastard of fly that seem to find my flesh very interesting. One time it mistook my rather large schnozzle for a runway. And I sent my glasses flying trying to swat it away. Got it later though.
Okay, that was enough self-pity for today.
It didn’t help.
Much.
Opt for the freezer
Bottomline is that I must work, and someone have left the heat way on.
One part of me says quit whining and get on with it, you pathetic whimp. And while that might have some truth to it, I am also not performing at my optimum in the heat. I stray off tangents, daydream more instead of staying on target. And normal articles that should have been done inside an hour or two, take forever. Plus, the quality of my writing goes down, so I have to spend so much more time checking and correcting mistakes than I usually do. And just getting down to these lines, you have probably stumbled upon more than a few mistakes. Right?
So, what to do?
Okay according to various internet searches and some help from my OpenAI ChatGPT it seems that the optimal working temperature is around 20-24 degrees Celsius. It’s of course very individual. Some people like my wife have no problem with temperatures much higher than that, although she does slow down, when we are approaching the 30 degrees and above. I however would much prefer a temperature like between 19 and 22 degrees. Right now, I probably would opt for the freezer, if it was a walk-in.
As that is not an option, I have begun an experiment, where I get up at 04:30 in the morning, when the temperature now is around 20-21 degrees. Some mornings we’re lucky if the morning start out at 19 degrees. That gives me some extra hours with more normal optimal working conditions.
Okay, it’s dark when I open the door for the mastiff out to the fields of olive trees, where she can relive herself. We have even seen a wild boar watching us intently before it headed off in the opposite direction, too fast for my iPhone camera to be ready. The mastiff watched it depart and did obey the command to stay put. A closer encounter would not have ended well. For the dog… unless she surprises me.
So we stay on the grounds at least until the first light breaks. Even though the wild boars normally are not supposed to be overly aggressive before the mating season in November.
Not a happy camper
Any drawbacks to starting work this early, I (almost) hear you wonder.
Well, yeah. I need a bit more time to get my act together, feed plus walk the dog, put on the coffee (espresso industrial strength) and opening the MacBook. And it does mean that I must go to bed earlier than before. Six or less hours sleep does not make Peder a happy camper. On the contrary. But at that time the wife is sleeping, and the mastiff is just happy to snore and drool next to my chair.
Do I get more done?
Yeah, I think so. But I do have to make an effort to power through the sleepiness to get all the writing done. Mails and small practical tasks are for later, as they usually don’t require the same concentration. I still try to keep my fundamental schedule that I spelled out in an earlier post. Although I do take walk with the dog, when there is a little more light than the picture above shows.
I work till about nine, when my better half emerges. We have some coffee out here with a view to the hills. Sometimes we’re just a little quiet together, while checking our phones or exchanging small talk. Half an hour later (in theory) I get back to the office.
Later, I either start doing the interviews, mails, and phone calls. I have a hard time thinking that could be earlier.
When midday approaches, I start thinking about retreating inside. One it’s cooler, a freezing 26 degrees, and two there is a larger monitor for the laptop. It helps. The monitor and the 26 degrees both. The lower temperature almost feels like I really have gotten my wish with that walk-in freezer.
Of course, I could just stay inside there the whole morning, you could argue, but that would leave the mastiff alone outside for too long. And she is a big crybaby. Her whimpering can be heard from afar, including the living room on the ground floor, where I now have my desk. To lock her inside with me all day with just a few breaks for outside seems a little harsh, so the table outside it is.
Another measure is that I have quit drinking wine and beer in the evening on normal. Could be my age, but even a small glass or three in the evening with dinner does influence my performance the following morning. It’s not like I have forsaken all alcoholic beverages completely. Heavens no. We might have a glass or a bottle in the weekend. Maybe also when the kids come by.
And I also want to write to you about the Italian take on beer. They seem to have some pretty good beers, also for sale in the local supermarkets. I have also come across some good tasting ones in the local markets. But more on that later (where I most likely in the service of my readers have to taste a few).
As an added bonus I also seem to be losing weight. That supposedly should be good for my health.
Some people say.
An apologetic side note
Now why am I writing this in English and not in Danish or German, you might wonder. The answer to that is we have family and friends on both sides of the German-Danish border and in a few other countries, so English seems the right choice (even though I am so very far from mastering this language well enough, for which I apologize in advance). And that means that I sometimes (most of the times) go back and edit and add content, if I find mistakes (many) and remember something that might be relevant.
And a practical side note
Our plan is to post content every week, at least one article every weekend, hopefully more, as we learn new lessons in how to live this new and for us different life. There will be many dos and (surely) don’ts as we progress. Along the way I will also explain in more detail, how we prepared us for this next step in our lives together, as it took a lot of work and endless evenings discussing all sorts of challenges and dreams.
Of course, we will also publish, when we find new places, sights and other things that leave an impression on us. Hopefully that will leave you with a list of this to do or don’t do if you pass by here or if you also want to try something like this. Now the plan is soon as possible to build an app, so you easily can do that. With my limited technical abilities, we need to finance that and other expenses, so in due time we will charge a tiny sum for this content.