Lima on the brink of winter. Somehow the image of living in South America doesn't include cold foggy days. And yet that is just the way Lima is in the winter. Here it is mid-July and it is already cold. Cold means down to 12 degrees Celsius or about 55 degrees fahrenheit. Not really that cold by European or North American standards. But all things are relative.

Of course everyone here is talking about the weather. It is unusually cold. The sky is filled with fog, a light grey cotton that spreads over the city. Sunshine is a thing of the past.

You can sense the city adjusting to the low temperatures. Just as a organism slows down with the cold, Lima does too. Taxi drivers tell me that these winter months are no good for them.. People just want to stay home.

Personally, I love this time of year. It reminds me of where I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. There, our summers were often characterized with foggy, windy days and very cold nights. Even the high humidity in Lima is the same.

We live along the coast, where the fog hangs, and I love to see it swirl around , obscuring the buildings and making them much more mysterious. It is not as thick as London or the Central Valley of California, but certainly enough to make everything look different.

Limenos dress appropriately. Mufflers, coats and gloves are now appearing. If you walk around without all this, people tell you that you need to bundle up so as to avoid getting sick.

Well, I just love to get out and walk in this stuff. There is something about a cold foggy day that makes me want to move. Then there is the reverse pleasure of coming in from th cold to a warm, comfortable room. Perhaps it is the pleasure pain principle in action.

With the cold weather, I now see in the stores, stocks of pannetone, the italian sweet bread with bits of fruit in it. Peruvians love this bread especially when it is accompanied with a steaming cup of hot chocolate. It is a reward for suffering through the cold and how sweet it is. That reminds me that I must go out and get us another pannetone. They just don't last long in our household.

One of the miracles of Lima, though, is that in just a few minutes, actually 30-40, you can find a completely different climate. Lima is on the coast with a narrow strip of land that gives way to foothills and mountains. Just away from the coast, into the mountains, and the climate is sunny, warm and dry. So the wonderful thing in the winter in Lima is to schedule yourself for a brief trip to enjoy the change. Again the pleasure pain principle in action. How much do we appreciate the sun when we haven't seen it for a while? My only complaint about all this is that we don't get out of Lima often enough. It is hard to tear yourself away for a weekend or a Sunday and yet it is so wonderful when you do.

I used to live in Hawaii and was so bored with the continual sunshine with perfect temperature day in and day out. I yearned for an occasional foggy day and my wishes have been granted.

So pardon me while I bundle up and get out to our wonderful weather.