A friend of mine recently returned from a well-earned holiday which she spent in Portugal. And from what I was able to gather she had a lovely time, lapping up the sun and lying on the beach, wrapped in a beach towel, watching bronzed young men eager to impress onlookers with a display of their effortlessly acquired beach volleyball skills. Did I say wrapped in a beach towel?
Well, according to her account of what she experienced on holiday, it wasn’t the little mites, bless them, kicking up sand and jumping around excitedly as they built sandcastles and dug their warrens of trenches, or the athletic posers feigning a game of beach volleyball that bothered her most while she tried to unwind and enjoy her trip down to the beach – it was the wind.
Because although my friend was well aware of the fact that the holiday resorts along stretches of the Atlantic coast are recognised as not always being the calmest of places, she had not counted on ending up lying on a beach cocooned in a large Terry towel if she were to have any chance of braving the gusty squalls and strong winds that were whipping up the sand, whirling sunshades around and tearing at the billowing windbreakers.
So how come nobody has come up with the idea of not only checking out water temperatures and the air temperatures at holiday resorts but also wind speeds – preferably before somebody ends up stuck on a beach in the middle of a medium-sized sandstorm? Read More
Imagine a strong smell. No, not just one of your average bad smells – a truly revolting one. But careful – don’t dwell on it for too long – because sometimes even only the fleeting recollection of being locked in conversation with someone serenely unaware that they were suffering from bad breath, a waft of boiled cabbage, the whiff of a clogged drain, the intense smell of sweat from a sauna or a pair of discarded socks can prove to be too much to stomach for some. In fact some smells are so overpowering that there seems to be little that one can do short of covering one’s face and mouth and making a run for it.
And we’re off! Yes, the countdown has started! During the course of the following four weeks you can save as much as 1% on each of the eight measuring devices depicted above for every day from the day you place your order until the cut-off day on August 13, 2011.
Most of the time people don’t give much thoughts about how to air their house or apartment. During the cold and frosty months of winter at least you mind to keep the doors and windows closed to keep the valuable and costly heating energy inside the house, don’t you? But as soon as the temperature rises again no one really cares anymore… Because if it is warm outside I can open up all windows and doors to let fresh air into my apartment, so there is no problem anymore with damp basements or moist walls, right? 
