As the weather topped 40C residents of The Hood decided to stay inside and look longingly at their terrace today. Seems that an evening breeze brings heat the following day.

Since moving to The Hood, insteadi has to admit to becoming something of a weakling. Temperatures that previously meant huge permagrins plastered across my face now send me scrabbling for the AC remote (cue lots of smug smiles from all my former colleagues who had to suffer when I got too cold from the AC and turned it off). Not very environmentally friendly, but hey, if multinationals can move their operations to Egypt to take advantage of electricity subsidies and lower environmental standards than Europe, then a few AC’s to keep me sane aren’t going to make that much of a difference.

It seems that the temperature has affected me in other ways too (or perhaps it’s just the expat air of The Hood): my layer of desensitised-to-comments-on-the-street-skin has been eroded. I am now in the unenviable position of understanding what is being said AND not having thick enough skin to be able to ignore what I hear (while also being a bit betty).

Solutions? Get out there and build up a new protection against leery comments, or, stay in the cool AC’d apartment and wait, in true expat fashion, for a car to take me where I want to go.

Ever aware of my carbon footprint, it seems that developing a thick skin will somewhat reduce the environmental damage my existence creates…well, as long as I remember to turn the AC off before going out!