February Fandom Fest 23
Feb. 24th, 2016 02:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amruniel23 - Summer
I LOVE summer. Not just the time of year, but especially the temperature!
I'm a perpetually freezing person. I constantly battle cold hands, and more annoying: cold feet. And once my feet are cold there's no way of staying warm for the rest of my body. It's a nightmare. (And probably will sometime in a married future be the reason for divorce :D - I'm constantly shoving my poor frozen toes onto any available warm body part in reach... Himself has been known to shriek like a girl in the middle of the night after the first contact with my frosty limbs ;) )
I feel okay-ish in a temperature range between 20 and 25° Celsius. Anything below 24 means long sleeves, but I usually am okay with the world as long as temperatures stay above 20.
From 25 to 30° I'm good. Not perfect, but happy enough.
Things get great once the thermometer hits 30° Celsius. That's where I feel alive, and happy, and perfectly content with wearing tops or sleeveless dresses.
I know, almost everybody suffers in this kind of weather, but for me it's simply perfect! I don't think I could have been any happier with the heatwave 2015 :) All around me people were groaning and complaining and I was perfectly content and all was right with the world :)
So yeah, summer! Love! Happiness! Perfection!
In June 2014 Himself and I went on our first real summer holiday together (after 8 years, can you believe it?!!!?) - I've always wanted to go, because there's nothing better than lazing around on a beach reading book after book after book. Himself always claimed that he wasn't the beach type and he would be bored to death lying around all day. He always insisted on city trips.
After 8 long years I finally convinced him that my idea was the way to go ;)
So we packed the car, shoved ourselves into the remaining space and set out to Italy. We stayed in a lovely apartment house with a private pool, a private beach and approximately 50 metres linear distance between our balcony and the sea. It's been a great week and I still miss falling asleep and waking up with the sound of the waves in my ear.
Here are a few pics:
(Himself with short hair and way less arm muscles than these days on the balcony. The beach you see in the background is further away than the one right in front of us - so you get a feeling for how close to the sea we actually were.)
(Me with my beloved Australia-strength (50+ SPF) sun blocker. My life-saver! And I don't think I've ever been as awake and chipper at approximately 9 in the morning :D
By the way - in the blurry sky/sea background lies Venice. We never went there -too many tourists in late July to even attempt it- but there was a ferry point over to the city approximately 10-15 minutes by car from our apartment.)
(Our nightly walk along the shore. I loved it!)
This last summer we stayed at home - who needs a holiday if there's sun and heat galore to be had at home? ;)
So here's where I spent my summer:
(I sneakily convinced my parents to purchase a new temporary pool in the beginning of June. Let me tell you I spent most of the summer in there :D)
(Whenever I wrenched myself away from the water the pink bath towel was where you could find me. There's NOTHING better than lazing in the sun with the warm tiles under the towel simultaneously drying the body part you're lying on ;) )
Since we're living right outside Vienna and therefore right next to the Danube there's also another side of summer we encounter pretty frequently: flooding.
We usually have one or two cases of high water during a normal summer. Most often it's nothing more than a few flooded basements in those houses built right next to the river. But every few years there are real high floods, and in 2013 we've had what the clever meteorologists termed a hundred-year flood (never mind that the last one of this size before the 2013 one was in 2002 *shrugs*).
Frankly? It's so amazing - any single time! Himself and I have been known to drive down to the river to go "flood watching" in the middle of the night when the water levels rise above their "usual" high water levels.
And -of course- we're on the scene when the flooding gets really bad - yes, we're weird like that ;) But then - we're certainly not the only ones! It's a sight to be seen!
(Me on a flooded street - notice my pretty wellies, I love them! Usually the Danube is behind the trees right at the back of the background. Behind the trees a bit further in front is a side-arm and these bushes and trees are in front of a stretch of grass in front of said side-arm. So there's quite a lot of water where usually there shouldn't be ;) )
(Flooded ways in our local alluvial forest. With the mist hanging above the water it's been amazingly beautiful!)
(An alley leading through the alluvial forest to the river - completely under water. The newspaper-thingy (the yellow rectangle with the red/white logo) is mounted at about chest-height. If I had to guess I'd say there's approximately 100m direct line from the first boat to the Danube.)
(The Danube, a tongue of land separating the river and its side-arm and the side arm itself as a single body of water. It's really quite impressive. Sadly I haven't got any "before" pictures :/ )
(Here's another side-arm -even further inland- right next to a street. The wall separating street and the bridge we're standing on is probably 5-6 metres high (the street dips down below the bridge here and its lowest point is somewhere around the normal water-level I'd say). During a dry and warm summer this particular side-arm has been known to have a water level of 10-15cm, on a normal day during a normal summer it's somewhere between 30cm and a metre probably - so yeah, there's a hell lot of water and the city has been lucky that the water hasn't risen for another 5 or 10 centimetres... I think at the highest point of the flood there were 4 cm left between the top of the wall and the water line.
This time google has been my friend - a pic from the construction of the bridge. As you can see by the debris in the water this pic has been taken after/during a "normal" high water - so there's quite a bit more water in there than the usual half a metre.)
Despite the somewhat regular "bad" sides, summer is definitely my favourite season!
I just hope it'll be hot again soon! ;)
I LOVE summer. Not just the time of year, but especially the temperature!
I'm a perpetually freezing person. I constantly battle cold hands, and more annoying: cold feet. And once my feet are cold there's no way of staying warm for the rest of my body. It's a nightmare. (And probably will sometime in a married future be the reason for divorce :D - I'm constantly shoving my poor frozen toes onto any available warm body part in reach... Himself has been known to shriek like a girl in the middle of the night after the first contact with my frosty limbs ;) )
I feel okay-ish in a temperature range between 20 and 25° Celsius. Anything below 24 means long sleeves, but I usually am okay with the world as long as temperatures stay above 20.
From 25 to 30° I'm good. Not perfect, but happy enough.
Things get great once the thermometer hits 30° Celsius. That's where I feel alive, and happy, and perfectly content with wearing tops or sleeveless dresses.
I know, almost everybody suffers in this kind of weather, but for me it's simply perfect! I don't think I could have been any happier with the heatwave 2015 :) All around me people were groaning and complaining and I was perfectly content and all was right with the world :)
So yeah, summer! Love! Happiness! Perfection!
In June 2014 Himself and I went on our first real summer holiday together (after 8 years, can you believe it?!!!?) - I've always wanted to go, because there's nothing better than lazing around on a beach reading book after book after book. Himself always claimed that he wasn't the beach type and he would be bored to death lying around all day. He always insisted on city trips.
After 8 long years I finally convinced him that my idea was the way to go ;)
So we packed the car, shoved ourselves into the remaining space and set out to Italy. We stayed in a lovely apartment house with a private pool, a private beach and approximately 50 metres linear distance between our balcony and the sea. It's been a great week and I still miss falling asleep and waking up with the sound of the waves in my ear.
Here are a few pics:
(Himself with short hair and way less arm muscles than these days on the balcony. The beach you see in the background is further away than the one right in front of us - so you get a feeling for how close to the sea we actually were.)
(Me with my beloved Australia-strength (50+ SPF) sun blocker. My life-saver! And I don't think I've ever been as awake and chipper at approximately 9 in the morning :D
By the way - in the blurry sky/sea background lies Venice. We never went there -too many tourists in late July to even attempt it- but there was a ferry point over to the city approximately 10-15 minutes by car from our apartment.)
(Our nightly walk along the shore. I loved it!)
This last summer we stayed at home - who needs a holiday if there's sun and heat galore to be had at home? ;)
So here's where I spent my summer:
(I sneakily convinced my parents to purchase a new temporary pool in the beginning of June. Let me tell you I spent most of the summer in there :D)
(Whenever I wrenched myself away from the water the pink bath towel was where you could find me. There's NOTHING better than lazing in the sun with the warm tiles under the towel simultaneously drying the body part you're lying on ;) )
Since we're living right outside Vienna and therefore right next to the Danube there's also another side of summer we encounter pretty frequently: flooding.
We usually have one or two cases of high water during a normal summer. Most often it's nothing more than a few flooded basements in those houses built right next to the river. But every few years there are real high floods, and in 2013 we've had what the clever meteorologists termed a hundred-year flood (never mind that the last one of this size before the 2013 one was in 2002 *shrugs*).
Frankly? It's so amazing - any single time! Himself and I have been known to drive down to the river to go "flood watching" in the middle of the night when the water levels rise above their "usual" high water levels.
And -of course- we're on the scene when the flooding gets really bad - yes, we're weird like that ;) But then - we're certainly not the only ones! It's a sight to be seen!
(Me on a flooded street - notice my pretty wellies, I love them! Usually the Danube is behind the trees right at the back of the background. Behind the trees a bit further in front is a side-arm and these bushes and trees are in front of a stretch of grass in front of said side-arm. So there's quite a lot of water where usually there shouldn't be ;) )
(Flooded ways in our local alluvial forest. With the mist hanging above the water it's been amazingly beautiful!)
(An alley leading through the alluvial forest to the river - completely under water. The newspaper-thingy (the yellow rectangle with the red/white logo) is mounted at about chest-height. If I had to guess I'd say there's approximately 100m direct line from the first boat to the Danube.)
(The Danube, a tongue of land separating the river and its side-arm and the side arm itself as a single body of water. It's really quite impressive. Sadly I haven't got any "before" pictures :/ )
(Here's another side-arm -even further inland- right next to a street. The wall separating street and the bridge we're standing on is probably 5-6 metres high (the street dips down below the bridge here and its lowest point is somewhere around the normal water-level I'd say). During a dry and warm summer this particular side-arm has been known to have a water level of 10-15cm, on a normal day during a normal summer it's somewhere between 30cm and a metre probably - so yeah, there's a hell lot of water and the city has been lucky that the water hasn't risen for another 5 or 10 centimetres... I think at the highest point of the flood there were 4 cm left between the top of the wall and the water line.
This time google has been my friend - a pic from the construction of the bridge. As you can see by the debris in the water this pic has been taken after/during a "normal" high water - so there's quite a bit more water in there than the usual half a metre.)
Despite the somewhat regular "bad" sides, summer is definitely my favourite season!
I just hope it'll be hot again soon! ;)
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no subject
Date: 2016-02-24 09:32 pm (UTC)I'm glad your flooding doesn't cause the devastation it does over here.
For whatever reason, it seems to be our city centres that get flooded in the 1 in a 100 year weather and that causes a huge amount of damage to people's homes and businesses.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-25 01:46 am (UTC)The lowest part of the city is still a bit higher than even the highest flood-levels were (but in 2013 we had about 2 cm to spare... the businesses and homes around were all covered knee-high in sandbags in case the water-level would rise another few centimetres.
On the outer parts of the city we did have quite extensive flooding. But these people know they live in a danger-zone and most of them a) cleared their basements before it got too late and have some sorts of pumping system in place for times like that and b) left their houses altogether in the more threatened areas.
But since floodings are quite regular here most of the houses near the Danube/in flood zones are actually built on stilts. So it's only the really big floods that leaves a lot of damage to deal with, and even then the people in danger have geared up since the flood in 2002 where some of the people living outside the usual danger-zones were taken by surprise.
We've learned to deal with regular floods and high waters, I guess.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-25 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-26 01:37 am (UTC)And yeah, the Romans probably had other things on their minds when building London.
When they came round to Vienna they did build sufficiently far away from the Danube to avoid being dripping wet at every single flood. But then, that's probably more due to the fact that somebody else settled further away from the river before they showed up, and not because they suddenly knew what they were doing :)