Did I mention it was hot in Austin? My car thermometer hit 118F just yesterday. Official temperatures are still three digits. I spent much of today visiting friends, where we simply read, and ate, and drank, and swam.
The pool temperature was 89F; so warm that the only difference between being in the water and out of it was that water feels thicker than air. As a result, it's getting hard to remember Scottish weather, where not every year even has a summer. Somehow my mind filters out the seemingly endless rain, and miserable greyness that covers a lot of the year. What stands out are good-weather times like the vacation I took with three pals (Johnny, Joe and John), youth hosteling up and down Loch Lomond-side when I was in high school, where we got burned by the sun and I first learned to "cook" baked beans; or halcyon summers spent with umpteen friends in an old church house in Stratherrick, near Loch Ness -- the heather was always purple, and then brown and red if we ever went back in the autumn; or two weeks in Skye with my mum and dad and wee sister, and my wee dug, "Bambi" (it was a Papillon - what an embarrassment of a name!).
And I do remember a particular good summer around the mid 1970s. I was either in late Primary school or early Secondary (i.e. what they call Middle school in the US). It was so hot (by Scottish standards) that we could poke holes in the pavement (i.e. sidewalk) surface with sticks. It didn't get much better than that! I don't know what they made sidewalks out of back then, but it's clear they do it differently in Texas. Otherwise the sidewalk would be flowing down the street.