The steam roller (well, diesel roller to be more accurate) has a huge concrete front wheel. It must be five metres wide by two metres in diameter and it's headed straight towards me. I'm stumbling over piles of rocks, all random shapes, about football-sized and arranged in metre-high piles all around me. It seems as though I am in a huge quarry or stone yard of some description. I start running to my left and the steamroller changes direction to keep trundling at full pelt towards me, crushing the stones to gravel in the process.

Some fifty metres away there stands a low building, like it may serve as the site offices or something. I decide that I could run behind it, thus getting out of the roller's sights. Just as my last breath ebbs and panic begins to set in and I start to imagine myself becoming a soft red and white mulch, the driver rises from his seat, waves and calls to me, "Will you wait a minute!! I need to talk to you!"

Should I trust him? Just as I'm making this decision there's the sound of china clinking, the gorgeous noise that a cup makes when it's being carried on a saucer with a nice fresh brew of Earl Grey inside it. Perhaps a digestive or two waiting on the saucer for me to dunk...

"You ever going to wake up, then?" Says my wife Y-Maria. My eyes flutter open to reveal the features of our bedroom forming reassuringly all around me. There I am spreadeagled across our bed dreaming some weird scenario. It's not unusual for me, to be honest. I glance at her alarm clock to see it's 8.40am. Another night when I haven't slept very well. I quite often find that between the hours of one and three to three thirty I don't sleep. I end up flicking channels endlessly on Greek TV, which is invariably rubbish, or switching on the Mac and then finding that too much time has passed and, as it's getting light, I ought to return to bed and try and sleep an hour or two. The result is that, if it's not a day when I need to rise early either to do an excursion or some gardening job, I sleep a little later than I'd like. Sometimes I just go outside, stand on the drive and star at the Milky Way. I never lose my appreciation for the fact that you can observe it in great clarity most nights here in Rhodes.

The only hours during which you can do anything physical during a Rhodean August are 6.00am until 7.30am, or after 7.00pm until dark. Maria has already watered the garden. We do have an extensive watering system, but still there are enough odd small raised beds and things in pots to make the job about 40 minutes work every morning or evening. Fortunately for me, today she rose early and has done it all. She's already taken her first outdoor shower of what will probably turn out to be six or seven by the time the light fades this evening. A few feet from the wall of the house we have installed this al fresco shower on the side of the car port. Well, to be precise, it's a strategically placed nail in the nook of the wooden frame of the car port and it's positioned exactly right so we can lodge the hose pipe gun under it, set the nozzle to "spray" and - hey presto - we have an outdoor shower. Bliss.

She's already had her first shower, put the muesli in soak (a must) and made a fresh cup of Earl Grey. She brings hers back to bed with her and we begin one of those rare days when we don't have to leave the house. Outside it's already 29ºC (84ºF) and there isn't a breath of wind. It's going to be a hot one. No surprises there then, after all, it is the first week of August. We pick up our novels and delight in laying in the semi-darkness with an Earl grey to sip and a good book to get lost in.

During July and August on Rhodes you either keep all your blinds tightly closed on any window that has the sun on it or you're quite simply barmy. Years ago, when we used to travel from the UK to visit my wife's relatives in Athens, it used to amaze me that, on entering their apartments during daylight hours I'd find them totally dark inside; blinds and windows tightly closed to keep out the merciless sun. I could never understand this apparent craziness. I used to think they didn't appreciate how wonderful it was to have such glorious sunshine day after day for months on end. What we wouldn't give for such reliable weather back in the UK, eh? Now, having lived here for five years I completely understand. During the summer months, when the relentless heat wears you down day after day, you long for coolness. You long for shade. You dream about rain.

So we lay on our bed reading with the blind and window tightly closed against the heat and light outside. Bedside lamps suffice while we read and consume our tea. Once that's accomplished and we both reach new chapters in our books we get up and set about finishing the breakfast preparations. Yogurt and chopped banana on my muesli, tahini replacing yogurt on hers. Whatever fruit is in season is extricated from the fridge, washed where necessary and chopped on to a dinner plate for the first course. Before long we have a fine and colourful display of water melon, honeydew melon, figs, peaches and early season grapes almost tumbling off of the edge of the pate. A hot mug of peppermint tea as accompaniment and we're ready to eat.

If the humidity is tolerable we may take breakfast out on the terrace, looking down the valley below us toward the sea. Humidity is a very important factor here. It can be 35º with low humidity and it's very tolerable. When the humidity is low your sweat evaporates, thus cooling your skin and making it feel more like 28º. On the other hand, it can be 30º with high humidity and it'll feel like 42º, which is around 108ºF, not pleasant. Plus you feel wet the whole time and any clothes on your skin will stick to it uncomfortably. On such days we do succumb to the temptation to run the air conditioning, although we try to resist as much as we can for two reasons. One, it's not very "green" to use it all the time and two, it dehydrates the room and you find your eyes drying up and your need to drink water becomes much more urgent than it already is.

Today we can see a clear line on the horizon so at least the humidity is low. We decide to eat outside. By the time we get all the food and drinks out onto our little marble table it's already approaching 9.30 and the thermometer's reading 32º. I spread a towel over my padded chair cushion to stop my sweat soaking into it and we sit and eat. We finish our breakfast some time after ten and decide that it's time for another outdoor shower. If I had been up earlier we may have walked the twenty five minutes or so down to our favourite spot of beach, just near the Il Ponte Taverna. On such occasions we try and set out before eight o'clock and usually get back at around 9.45-ish. When we reach the house all the benefits of having taken a cool dip have vanished over the hill we've just walked up and we tear off our shorts and tops and take an outdoor shower before doing anything else - like preparing breakfast.

The morning is passed with my wife stretched on the sofa, once again immersed in a good book, while I either join her, or beaver away on the Mac. Sometimes I have graphic design work from UK clients to do, other times I'll blog or write a chapter for the next book. At some time around 12.30pm we'll make a frappe, which we will once again either sup through straws outside on the terrace, or, if it's a high-humidity day, inside in the cool semi-darkness. Walking out the front door when you're spending a quiet day at home during August is somewhat like entering a blast furnace. You find yourself doing whatever it is you have to do with as much despatch as possible so you can once again retreat to the sanctuary of the cool, bedarkened interior of the house.

Lunch comprises some chopped salad and warm pitta bread, accompanied by a few of our home preserved olives. We got the idea from a near neighbour last winter to include a couple of cloves of garlic in the salted water in which the olives are preserved. It's totally transformed our enjoyment level where olives are concerned. In the next book 'Tsatsiki For You to Say" I'll be recording the entire method, so you can try it yourself (assuming you have access to a supply of freshly picked olives that is!), but take it from me - black olives in brine with garlic are TDF with a capital, well, TDF!

After lunch it's the second cup of Earl Grey today and we take that to bed with us for the siesta. It's around 3.00pm now and like a crucible outside.Unless you're a tourist only here for a week or two, outside isn't where you wanna be right now. The thermometer shows 37ºC and the horizon having retreated behind a pale blue haze reveals that the humidity is rising, a fact our skin has already begun to inform us of as we can't stay dry. Just before flopping on top of the cotton sheet on the bed to drink our tea and read another chapter before dropping off for a while, we nip outside, naked, and take another outdoor shower.

On a day like today we decide to give in and switch the air-con on. Many British people who come out here for their vacations tend to set the air conditioning in their accommodation to something ridiculous like 17 or 18ºC. Small wonder that many go home with colds. The given wisdom from the locals is that you can set it on 26º and, if it's over 30 outside, you'll feel pleasantly cool without your body thinking you've just walked into a butcher's fridge and thus having to work overtime to cope with the temperature variations! Plus, if you use the "sleep" setting, which isn't a switch-off timer like on your radio or TV, but rather a low energy setting that reduces fan noise, you can doze quite happily in comfort. I simply love that feeling when I've finished the last drop of my tea and as I read I feel my eyelids dropping. The books go onto the bedside tables and we invariably find ourselves "tucking-down" at the same time to a "Kalo Mesi Meri" from her and a "Kalo Apoh'gevma" from me.

We begin to stir at something approaching five and decide that today an early evening swim is on the agenda. We mooch about sleepily, putting on swimming costumes and packing a small canvas bag with a towel and a change of undies. The obligatory bottle of chilled water (for drinking en route) gets wrapped in the towel for insulation. We love our canvas bag. It has "PADSTOW FARM SHOP" printed on both sides and was a present from our friends George and Allison, who live in Cornwall, UK. In fact if you go to this "LINKS" page you'll see a link to "www.quayhouse.co.uk", ...that's their place. Do go some time, it's wonderful there. We use this bag almost every time we stroll down for a swim and it reminds us of good friends seldom seen.

Some half an hour or so later and, were you to be seated in the Il Ponte taverna in Kiotari, you'd see us walk by and wave to Anastasias, one of the two brothers who own and run it. The ramp down on to the sand and shingle beach is directly in front of the taverna and we're soon dropping our things on one of Anastasia's sun-beds and running into the deliciously cool water. We do our usual route along the beach to the "buoys" and back, shower and dry off, change and start the walk back home. Sometimes we stay a while on the nicely spaced sun-beds, which we're never charged for. One of the perks of knowing and being known by people locally I suppose. Reaching home we once again throw everything off and make use of our hi-tech outdoor shower. I hang the swimming costumes and towel on the rotary line to dry while Y-Maria nips inside and prepares a couple of VAT's (plenty of ice), which she brings out along with a dish of peanuts, pretzels or origano-flavoured crisps and we plonk ourselves down on a pair of "directors" chairs which we've placed beside the small round table I've built from an old cable drum and the trunk from an olive tree at the front of the garden, from where we can stare down the valley and out to sea as the sun finally loses its oppressiveness and begins to kiss the hill to our right.

Darkness is almost completely upon us when we stir, wander back inside where my wife busies herself knocking up some delicious pasta, which will be accompanied by a glass of red wine, while I sit at the Mac and check e-mails or book orders in need of processing. Once we've eaten it's after 9.00pm and we're ready for bed. A good novel, coupled with the fact the Greek TV isn't much good, and you have the perfect incentive to retire early and read.

I wonder what I'll dream about tonight.