Hot Flash!

OK, I’ll say what everyone around me has been thinking – the weather has gone to shit! What was supposed to have been a lovely summer in South Africa turned into one big wet muddy bloody mess! The Northern Hemisphere is icing over and the Southern Hemisphere is deluged with rain and somewhere a penguin is sitting on a shrinking iceberg staring into the ocean wondering what the hell is going on! Fighting my way through rainstorms, flash floods and rain induced traffic jams, I couldn't help but wonder, have the effects of Global Warming finally caught up with us?

For some queer reason our four cats believe hubby and I are omnipotent and controls the universe and blames us for any sudden changes in the weather. It has been raining here, on and off, for the last 6 weeks and as all of us knows pussies don’t like getting wet. So when it’s time for them to go potty, mud is a less than desirable alternative for their sensitive dry, clean and spoiled paws. Consequently, hubby and I have been getting a significantly increased number of insufferable feline stares. Our pool have also over flown twice, our garden is over saturated and we are pretty sure that our house’s gutters have been expunged of all accumulated debris that may have collected in them during the winter months. South Africa has been unseasonably chilly and wet and for this my cats blames us and I, in return, blame Global Warming!

One would think that with Global Warming the planet would be heating up, then why is it that it appears that the opposite is happening – all over the world it is getting less sunny and is in effect getting colder. I’m no climatologist and I am sure that an expert could explain this in uneconomical and incomprehensible detail. But just think about events of the last 8 weeks. Heavy snow fall in Europe saw the closure of airports causing many of my fellow bloggers to be stranded in foreign countries without any spare clean underwear. There have been floods in Australia, Brazil and Southern Africa that could see cars being fitted with life rafts in addition to the standard airbags in future. The weather has gone awry and clearly Mother Nature is having a bad day and the bitch is making us pay.

As I type this I can literally see my tan fade away from my Vitamin D deprived skin. I’m finding it difficult to summon up recent memories of lounging next to the pool while sipping cocktails in the African summer heat. The once adored melodic rhythmic sound of raindrops dancing on our roof now mocks me, detains me and frustrates me. I am wet, confined to indoor spaces, prone to bad hair days, forever cleaning up muddy paw prints, struggling to dry my washing and constantly peckish for snacks which are making me fat! To worsen matters, yesterday my car’s on-board computer also warned me my breaks are falling and all this while the roads are wet, flooded, pot hole filled and congested with people who, when water is added to the equation, for no clear reason loses their basic driving skills. Global warming is making me feel claustrophobic, unattractive, fat and could also make my live potentially dangerous.

Sure Mother Nature and Planet Earth have been having a tough time with us polluting the air with fossil fuels, drilling into her for minerals, stripping her forests and over fishing her oceans. She’s also getting on a bit in age with hot flashes now and again being unavoidable and she too may not be feeling all that attractive. And for all of what we have done to her, she sure knows how to retaliate – if she’s going to die as a result of our actions she’s hell bend on taking us all with her in the form of global warming. Like a mother disciplines a child, so too are we now being disciplined by nature by being scorched, frozen, flooded and shaken about. Will we learn our lesson before it is too late and the world turns to hell, well only time will tell!

Through all of this particular planetary hot flash and motherly chastising I am doing my best to stay positive and look at the bright side. At least our house is not in a low lying area prone to flooding, our roof is not leaking and the gutters are not blocked. Killer pussy has not murdered a bird in weeks and the avian population in our neighbourhood have had some time to recover. Our garden has not needed to be watered in over a month and the pool didn’t need refilling resulting in a significantly reduced water bill. And finally, I can always go back to gym to lose my global warming weight, have my breaks repaired and as for bad hair days there are always hats.

As the rain continues to pour down in the Southern Hemisphere and the snow continues to fall in the Northern Hemisphere, we are all reminded of our fragile planet and left to contemplate whether global warming is just a theory or a very real reality. Truth be told, Mother Nature is having a hot flash and it’s a wet and cold one! In the years to come many more surprises will come our way and I suspect some of them will not be pleasant. But for now, all I want is for the rain to stop, to again see the sun protrude through the rain clouds forming a pretty rainbow and for the warm sun rays to kiss my skin and give me a few more freckles!

Till next time.

Katy Perry FIREWORK!! parody by SHERRY VINE