Indian Summer

Apparently we are enjoying an Indian Summer.

This is another of those strange expressions in English which must make it a fucking bastard to master for anyone not having used it since birth. I can only think of one Swiss-German equivalent - Warm Duscher (warm washer) - meaning a wimp, literally it means you prefer a warm shower to a cold one. This would be acceptable coming from a well known testosterone-fuelled country such as Korea or Russia but coming from the Swiss it is pretty hard to swallow. I don’t know anyone who prefers cold showers to warm, no one at all. In fact I would go as far to say, that if asked, the 300 Spartans from Thermopylae, after defending Greece from a million or so Persians, would like to luxuriate under a warm shower and thus be considered wimps, that is according to the Swiss.

I am not sure which Indians the phrase refers to, Wikipedia is less than helpful and therefore I would have to conclude it is the Indian Indians (as opposed to, for example, the red ones from North America). Google weather tells me it is currently 32c in Mumbai with humidity over 80% so Indian summer has to be rejected along with warm duschers as pure and simple bollocks. It’s nice but not that nice.

Cameron Leo Shanks was born 6 days ago, a gorgeous bundle of noise and food demands. He is currently sleeping in his pram next to me (yes in the living room) as I drink a beer and prepare for the final feed before bed. His mum is enjoying a well earned 3 hours sleep before the night shift commences. Our house, once the bastion of modernity and style has become soft and fuzzy with rounded edges and smells faintly of milk, and I for one absolutely LOVE it.