The clouds are low today — the breeze, when it comes, is cooler than one would expect in the beginning of June. In two days sixty-eight degrees will become ninety-five and we will begin the vigilant watch for signs of fire, a vigilance that will be maintained until winter. This is much the same as our life would have been had we remained in California, where fire season now takes up half the year. As it is, we are watching the erratic weather from our new home in central Portugal, in a region that four years ago saw 4,560 hectares, equivalent to around 11,268 acres of land burned in twenty-eight fires in this area of just over fifty square miles. (For context, fifty square miles is equal to roughly 32,000 acres.) This week, however, more than turning our attention to possible fire, the nation is turning its attention to the recent scandal wrought by shirtless, un-masked British tourists — a scandal that has been in the headlines every day since.
The British Exception
The British Exception
The British Exception
The clouds are low today — the breeze, when it comes, is cooler than one would expect in the beginning of June. In two days sixty-eight degrees will become ninety-five and we will begin the vigilant watch for signs of fire, a vigilance that will be maintained until winter. This is much the same as our life would have been had we remained in California, where fire season now takes up half the year. As it is, we are watching the erratic weather from our new home in central Portugal, in a region that four years ago saw 4,560 hectares, equivalent to around 11,268 acres of land burned in twenty-eight fires in this area of just over fifty square miles. (For context, fifty square miles is equal to roughly 32,000 acres.) This week, however, more than turning our attention to possible fire, the nation is turning its attention to the recent scandal wrought by shirtless, un-masked British tourists — a scandal that has been in the headlines every day since.