Back in Berlin

The temperature is in the nineties, set to rise, and the air is solid, but here in Berlin it is also silent. The shock of so little happening makes you feel like you're on one permanent afternoon nap, which is just as well.
On Saturday morning, we are still obliged to do the shopping for the weekend. The shops will shut and lunchtime and everybody will take to their recliners. In our case, with ice cold Bitburger. Beer never tasted so good, you just can't get it cold quick enough; it's like Ice Cold in Alex. Perhaps we will hardly move for the next thirty six hours. Even reading looks a little strenuous; we'll just feel the weight of this heat and remain as still as we can.
People say it's only and hour and a half's flying time, but actually I work it out at about two weeks. The Art of Travel? I don't know how anybody over forty manages it. Our ease of travel is one of those modern myths. All that anxiety beforehand takes up a lot of time, and then you've got the day itself, lost to Easyjet and the protocols of international transit, to searching and shepherding, to cojoin with the rest of our humanity on it's stag and hen do. You might as well be on an Odyssey. Once you've bothered to go through all this, and if you can, you should hand over a fat bundle of euros for the month's rent, slow recovery and the wait for snow to fall in your head. Personally I hope this happens soon, but as it is, I would like to report that the only sound I can presently hear, even with all the giant windows splayed open, is the tapping on this keyboard, and so that makes it worth it, that and the sound of that Bitburger cooling in the fridge.