Finally, I broke down and installed central air conditioning in my rental apartment. It has become indispensable. The landlord didn’t contribute one lousy centime, but after the torturous summer of 2022 I could not face 2023 without help to get me through it. This one is predicted to be worse, and longer, because of La Niña and general weather trends. So I have done what I can to be somewhat ready. The air con is in just one room and that’s where I will be confined when I am not escaping heat and humidity in cooler geographies.
The only way to countenance the cost is to think of it amortizing over five years. That means I won’t be moving from this apartment come hell or high water (we have a long-running drought so hell will arrive first). In a way, that takes the pressure off the decision “to stay, or not to stay.”
Speaking of hell, the water shortage in southwest France is so bad that firefighters had to use sea water to put out the first “incendies” of the fire season, which like everywhere else has been arriving earlier and earlier. (There are fires in the Urals and Siberia already, by the way.) The Sahara will, sometime after I am gone, reach here. We already have the climate hospitable to dengue and chikungunya.
The good news is that I will spend almost half of this summer elsewhere, in the mountains of Italy, in a small town in Ireland and on a lighting visit to Poland and Latvia. That’s not something I will be able to do with each passing year. As I said, good investment.
kmazz 
Makes sense. With Nice being so sunny and hot, I’d have guessed that electric heat pumps would be ubiquitous there. They’re sublime in summer heat. No dice in Nice?
I don’t know if France has caught on with those.
I literally breathed a side relief when I heard you got air-conditioning! It is absolutely indispensable. Excited to see you in a hopefully cooler climate this summer ☘️.
Thanks for keeping connected, Kathleen. I miss your photos in this edition. Thanks, too, for taking care of Europe for us all. I plan on visiting next autumn. Stay well, and keep having fun.
See you in the autumn, then!
So glad you got air con. Clearly you had enough last summer.
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div>I think I told you I m not going to Europe this summer. Instead I want to spend several weeks next May or October
Kathleen, you give us much to ponder! I suppose that on really hot days all you need to do is walk a few blocks due south and plunge into the Med for a few hours! Stay cool and enjoy your summer travels!