NOW REALLY IS THE WINTER OF MY DISCONTENT!

BY  TJ MILES

If you are reading this and don’t live in Spain you probably find this hard to believe, but I’M FREEZING! I think it’s just a case that I have become too used to the Spanish sunshine and warm weather and my blood has thinned from the consistency of a ruby port to that of a cheap red wine.

Weather today is a bone chilling 19 degrees, there is a light but scathing breeze and the cold sun is blazing high in the sky. Brrrr! In all seriousness, the biggest problem is that a lot of the houses built in the last ten years over here are constructed in such a way as to – supposedly – keep the summer heat out. Sadly, they also keep the winter cold in when temperatures drop.

Many a time I have seen myself sitting on my sunny terrace just to warm up my poor toes after walking around on cold floor tiles for a few minutes. No, no – please don’t wail in unison at my hardship. As an artist I expect to suffer for the greater good of cultural advancement, and will come out the far side as a stronger and wiser person before the perennial recycling into life affirming heat again by next spring.

The biggest problem for me is one of cold feet. I just cannot get any heat into my blocks of ice. Carpets are out of course, because for eight months of the year it is just too damned hot to walk around on shag pile without leaving a sweaty trail of toenail clippings sticking up like poisoned lances from an Indiana Jones movie, waiting to trap unsuspecting soft skinned adventurers like myself.

Dear knows what manner of creature would love to settle into a veritable mangrove of manmade fibres. Imagine squelching over that every day. Yuck! I have tried to put down large rugs, which have a tendency to wrinkle at the very corner you constantly walk over, causing you to trip and spill your heat conducting chocolate and churros all over the show. Not good. Then I tried small rugs, or ruglets as I call them. Worse! Barely have you stepped onto them when all of a sudden you are doing a triple somersault with half turn, worthy of Torville and Deane in their heyday!

It’s so easy to get your boleros in a twist if you’re not careful. The problem is that, even if you put loads of ruglets down around the house and tape them, glue them or nail them down, you still have to walk on the cold gaps between ruglets and between rooms, thereby instantly undoing all your good work of the previous three hours to get the heat back into your ‘plates of meat‘.

I then thought I would be clever and get a pair of slippers. I have tried them all…. ‘Granddad’ slippers – traditional Scottish tartan design direct from northern China, ‘Dad’ slippers – like the Granddad ones except you see good looking hunks with three day stubble (on their faces – not their feet!) modeling them in clothing catalogues in an effort to make them look trendy and sexy, deckies – boat shoes that are not designed to be worn with thermal socks in any conditions ashore or on water, and even comic slippers like big feet with toes sticking out and red painted nails – they just leave you looking stupid and feeling cold, as opposed to just feeling cold.

Currently I am lying on my back on two carpet tiles with my feet in the air pointing at the air conditioning unit set to ‘blisteringly hot‘. My carbon footprint has just gone up two sizes!

I’ve just had an idea! I’m going to get some string and tie a carpet tile to each foot. Perfect! Now I can have instant carpeting throughout my house, no matter where I wander. Why didn’t I think of this before? Now where did I put that roll of string?…

TJ Miles is a professional artist and has had his home and studio in Torrevieja for 8 years. He has a nomadic lifestyle but the lure of heady days spent lolling around in the sun and sea finally brought him to his senses, deciding to stay on a more semi-permanent basis. He also runs art classes, exhibitions and writes poetry. What is the art to living in Spain for him? “A reasonably stress-free life, a relatively healthy tan on the outside and, hopefully, a sunnier disposition on the inside. Maybe I am just trying to capture some of that youth back and maybe, just maybe, help myself to live a little longer in the process?”  http://tjmilesart.blogspot.com/