Hot stuff!!

As I sit here, recovering, after dragging myself through another baking hot day and night, it reminds me that I’m not built for this!!!

By not built, don't get me wrong, I do like good weather. I hate the rain and wind and I love a good summer’s day BUT I don’t compute 30 degrees - no thanks!

We are just not prepared for that type of heat in the UK. We have no air conditioning, no pool or cove at the ready for a quick dip if you get too hot - the sort of dip you do on holiday whilst reading all those books or between tricky crossword questions or simply to snorkel out for a gaze at the ocean floor. Also, you still have to work or do the general home stuff and cook... How unbearable is it when you have the oven on in this heat! I tell you what, it’s way too hot in here already so I’m going to light a fire - bonkers!

That’s why, in this weather, you decide to cook everything outdoors on the bbq - "hmm can I do toast using these tongs?".

Talking of bbqs, that generally goes badly too, as you overcook everything panicked by that TV advert in which they get ‘the trotts’ from dodgy sausages. The salad is a faff too, so you only end up eating bread products like burger baps, finger rolls, sub rolls and then the meat, with more meat on the side! Oh sorry, and ketchup - is that one of your five a day?

Back to the heat. With no air con this is when we all reach for the fans - known as the ‘fan parade’. Something old, something new, none borrowed, none blue - they are lined up to determine which meet the grade this year. Survival of the fittest - those that don’t match up are replaced early on day one or possibly day two of the heatwave; as the temperature soars and stress levels rise. The lower grade fan swiftly replaced with an Amazon Prime Special! And by special, I mean 'special' as fans are like the flight deck of the Millennium Falcon these days. Lights flashing and things spinning all over the place. I had to ask the kids what all the numbers meant. “Are you serious” they said. My son explaining “that’s the temperature now, that’s what you’ve set the temperature to, that’s the fan speed and that’s a clock Dad - it tells the time!”. Oops, RTFM springs to mind!

I remember when our son was born in the summer of 2003. It was baking hot then. We didn’t have the fancy fans of today (I know, I know - many out there will be commenting on remember what it was like when I was a child and we had to go down the mines etc). Anyway, back then we bought a great big box fan and all sat in front of it! It was the size of a TV! The programme on it wasn’t great though - let’s just say it was a spin off... At least it did the job - just.

I’d be keen to know what the average household fan count is. A bit like an assessment on the number of TVs per household or even children - is that still ‘2.4 children’ per household like the British sit com of the same name? I think the fan count would be higher. This might be overkill but we seem to have one each for sleeping, the one that stays downstairs, the one in the kitchen and then one in case of emergencies! Maybe those times when you are about to pass out and can’t get to unplug one of the other fans and move it quickly enough - or you just cannot take the risk of going upstairs!

When it’s hot, a trip to ‘the upstairs’ becomes something akin to an expedition. Something you need to prepare for. You get yourself a water bottle ready just in case you need it for the 13 steps - unlucky for all as the extreme heat greets you at the top. “It’s unbearable up here” is a common holla from someone braving such a trip. “Can you send up supplies please? I’m not sure I can make it back down without them.” You throw them up a fresh water bottle or Kendall Mint Cake to help overcome the final challenge.

As for being able to sleep in this weather - not a chance. It‘s basically impossible. Duvet on, duvet off, duvet on again, duvet off again, stand up and walk about a bit… and repeat!! If you manage to get yourself cool enough with the multiple fans, the noise is so loud that you feel like you are lying next to Top Gear’s Hovervan (we have lift..) or part of an F1 team test; involved in some kind of 100 metre per second messy air wind tunnel experiment for the best aerodynamic sleeping design - only one issue… the object is meant to stay still in a wind tunnel test - not a hope!

Is it inappropriate to all sleep downstairs in a heatwave?

As for our daughter, she seems to cope fine. I think it’s the ‘boneidleness’ I mentioned in the last blog. It makes me laugh that she doesn’t even open the window. I might say “you’ll bake in here if you don’t open a window”. “I’m fine” she says. “I don’t like when the bugs fly in” tends to be her follow up comment. I guess if you do nothing, it doesn’t matter how hot it is!!

One more thing. If any of you out there have teenage kids with gaming machines or consoles - be warned! These become like mini nuclear reactors on the hot summer days. The difference in mass between the reactants inside leaving it just ‘humming’ away in the corner similar to that 007 scene in which Sean Connery overloads the pool reactor in Dr No - she's gonna blow! All the blue, red or day-glo lighting makes it look strange enough as it is. Whatever that internal reaction energy is, it's expelled as heat making it like a small indoor Sun on an already hot day - maybe not readying to launch a Bond baddie's Radio Beam but could no doubt power a small city!

Enjoy the 'British summer' sunshine when it arrives everyone. Let’s get through this nuclear week in July and hopefully the great British weather will reward us with an early 20's August and September in which we can actually go out and do hot stuff!!