In which it is hot

[zeborah]

It's midday, and already 33°. Forecast for 36°. Australians may laugh, but 32° was the highest I ever knew through my teens; we've maybe had 34° a few times since; 36° is “Wait, what? Here?" The air is thick and heavy to breathe

My painter, who I swear told me he could use plastic to pull my plants away from the house himself, has now left a message that I need to trim them back. I got the message last night and thought “I guess that's what I'll be doing tomorrow afternoon," but it looks like I won't be doing them until evening at least.

Doing my grocery shopping, I picked up an ice block and ate it in gulps waiting for the bus. it was a five-minute bus trip home, during which time I heard the bus radio dispatch guy gives instructions to two bus drivers about cooling down their engines. My bus driver wouldn't open the roof hatch (apparently some of them end up blowing off) but drove with the doors open instead.

Currently I have my curtains closed, and a damp cloth wrapped around ice around my neck. (This is far more effective than my method, last hot day, of differing the cloth in a bowl of water and ice: the cloth's water evaporated and the ice melted. This way the melting ice keeps the cloth wet and cool.)

Comments

[ajk]

The anomalous weather appears to be a global phenomenon. As you know, we had lots of hot (but not that hot!) in our summer, and we are now having an excess of snow (we have already accumulated quit a bit more snow than we normally get in a whole winter).

Hope everyone survives your hot weather.

[zeborah]

Hopefully everyone had the sense to stay inside, but even so it was sweltering. I heard more sirens than usual since the quake; I wonder if it was fire engines, because a lot of quake-damaged houses have let their lawns grow long enough to be a fire hazard.

[green_knight]

36° is starting to tip over into 'a bit warm' territory.

The best advice I can give for it is to avoid air conditioning like the plague unless you treat it like a cold shower - brief relief. (And, y'know people with health conditions etc.) For the rest of the population, dealing with 8-10 degrees difference every time you walk out of the door is unsurmountable. I'd rather be miserable in the heat for a couple of days and adjust. (This advice was given to me by a Darwinite, and it worked a treat.)

[zeborah]

Fortunately air conditioning, like central heating, is not common here outside of shops. I made do with taking a long nap in the afternoon, and moving to the coolest room in the house (at about 28°) for the evening. No gardening was done; it was dark before it got much below 30°. My waterbed was useful for keeping me cool instead of warm.

This morning it's down to 15° and I may be able to get a bit of gardening done before I go to work. in the meantime I have all the windows open to flush out the stale air.

Another trick I learned, when in Japan, was you can sleep mostly without bedcovers, but keep a towel over your abdomen: it makes an amazing difference in how (un)grotty you feel in the morning.