Me whitey skin am burned

Phew what a scorcher
(copyright the tabloid headline databank corp ltd)

Been sat outside all day reading Island Songs by Alex Wheatle, the story of a Jamaican family who emigrate to the UK after a family tragedy, only 100 pages in but its superb and written in the mountain patois, hence the clumsy title, the strange thing is that while its a difficult read, or rather its difficult to read, the patois makes you slow down and actually read and understand each sentence and you can hear the richness of the voices in the dialogue which is a remarkable achievement for an author.

When I say I've been sat outside I should elaborate - I've been sat outside under an awning. Put the awning up on the gazebo yesterday and I'm glad we did. Set up base camp under it this morning with my easel and pastels and have finished off a commission for a friends 50th birthday today as well as reading the book.

Its been hot this afternoon.

I mean its been very hot, as hot as I have known it in this country. I sat out in the sun for 15 minutes with the book at 3pm and I burnt my legs, thats how hot its been, its dangerously hot, not that I'm complaining, love sitting under the canopy painting and a-reading all day and I've opened the first tin of beer now so am going out there again for a warm evenings drinky-poo soon.

Getting into the Jamaican book and burning myself in record time has also got me reminiscing of my time in Barbados a few years ago, its the chapter that I'm also working on at the moment in the classic tale of JerryChicken - What the Hell Kind of Dog Did That. I loved Barbados and its people and the friends that I made there on my five annual working trips, its an island that was granted its independance from the UK sometime in the 70's but it still clings to its Brtishness even more than we do here in Britain, its like visiting a pre-war Britain where everyone greets each other in the streets and old men raise their hats when you pass them, a lovely island and lovely people but with an increasing influx of British holiday makers since I was last there in '98 I hope that we do not dilute their colonial Britishness with what we have in this country now - fukkwit drunk Britishness.

The other thing that has had me thinking this afternoon is the speed at which I burnned me white leg skin in the sun and the way in which we complain when its too hot for one day of the year. The last time that I visited Barbados was in August '98 and in the middle of what they call their "wet season" when every day you can guarantee a couple of hours rain in the afternoon, except that it wasn't raining.

Sonia, the payroll clerk that I worked with at the hotel was complaining to me one afternoon that the heat was simply overwhelming and it was, but I was enjoying it and came out with the typical British response to a fine weather complaint, "don't complain Sonia, its lovely today, it might rain tomorrow".

She replied that it hadn't rained since April and that if it didn't rain soon then the island would have water problems in the coming "fine season" from October onwards, it sort of reminded me that some other countries can't rely on rain as much as we do in this country and that constant sunshine isn't always a blessing.

She also complained to me that the endless days of record sunshine that they were experiencing that year had led to a big increase in sunstroke and sunburn among the indigenous population and that was probably the first time that I realised that black skin burns just the same as white skin and that heat exhaustion also disregards race - I learned a lot about my subterranean whitey views during my visits there, stuff thats normally buried deep within a persons genes, mainly based on ignorance, they were very enlightening visits and I'd love to go back there one day in the hope that things are still the same and not tarnished by the British holidaymaker invasion.

Ho-hum, back to the painting - donkeys on Scarborough beach this time, its raining in the painting, people would never believe it if I showed the sun in a painting of Scarborough.