Summer in the city

Some time after summer was officially declared to have begun, it has arrived with a vengenance. Last weekend when it was hot but pleasantly breezy, Jamie scoffed at those who warned of unpleasant times ahead. "It doesn't get that hot here - it's nowhere near as hot as Bangkok". It's 37 degrees today and incredibly humid. Even taking Eliot to school at 8.30am was an ordeal. This was as much due to the energy required to push Eliot as to the now overpowering smells which accompany any walk.

Given the Chinese propensity to dump all rubbish on the streets, Shanghai is surprisingly litter free. This is not because people put their litter in the waste bins which do actually line the streets, but because there is an army of street sweepers patrolling the pavements. Each lane has its own litter bins at the street end of it and these are kept remarkably tidy and are emptied regularly. With temperatures in the high 30s though, even regular emptying is not enough to keep the odours at bay and the street sweeper bins can now be nosed out at some distance.

The colourful open food stores which I walk past on the school run have turned into a gauntlet of overpowering smells which I dodge as quickly as possible. The fresh fish store is no longer so fresh and the entrails which sit in the buckets by the shop are stomach turning. The meat store which had no smell a few weeks ago can now be detected all too easily and I avert my gaze from the man stirring the chickens' feet with his hands. Even the fruit and flower stores are no longer so pleasing. If you add to this the pervasive, acrid cement dust, it is a heady mixture which leaves you feeling as though there is not quite enough oxygen in the air.

I collapse into my cafe with more relief than usual and bask in the air conditioning and the ever delicious aroma of cappucino.