It is hot

[nineveh_uk]

Very hot. Hot beyond the capacity of the UK's infrastructure, which is designed for temperate drizzle, to cope with it. Trains are not running. I am considering whether I can put tinfoil over some thick cardboard tomorrow to reduce heat in my bedroom more than the curtains do. The government had a COBRA meeting yesterday, but Boris Johnson - who is still Prime Minister - didn't attend because he was getting ready for a party at Chequers today. I assume that means pre-drinking, because he certainly wouldn't have been doing any of the work. Mind you, if a volcano erupted under the City, Boris Johnson would still find somewhere else to be, though in that case he might pretend he cared and fuck off to Ukraine. He didn't have to pretend to care about people potentially dying of heatstroke because we already know he doesn't thanks to the Covid pandemic. And that's before we get on to the wider issues of climate change.

As for me, I'm feeling enervated and annoyed. I usually do well in heat. It improves my sinuses and generally a feel better in it than in the cold. When I'm on holiday and it's 40C in the shade, I am the mad dog and Englishwoman looking at the midday sun and thinking, "Great! Time to put on a hat and go to the very exposed site so I can take photographs without fellow tourists in the way." Unfortunately, it turns out that the bit of one's body that regulates heat is the autonomic nervous system, and mine is currently dysfunctional due to Covid. So while I remain feeling fine in terms of the heat, because it is doing its thing (and far better than it manages in the cold), it is evidently running through a large proportion of my energy to do that, and thus I am not suffering heat exhaustion (good), but I am am getting long Covid fatigue etc. I got very little done on a largely free weekend*, and work productivity tomorrow, needless to say, is not going to be high. But I am enormously better off than a lot of people nonetheless.

Oh yes, and yesterday I tried to go to bed early and couldn't fall asleep because through the open window came the sound of caterwauling/foxes from the gardens of the neighbouring street, like a cross between a really grumpy toddler and someone starting a petrol lawn mower.

*Although I did have a nice walk first thing this morning before it got really hot. Alas, I didn't recreate the experience of last weekend when I saw a leveret running towards me on a path through the field. I don't think I've ever seen a leveret before, and I didn't know there were hares in that field. Today I had to make do with a rabbit and a red kite.

ETA: On actual numbers. The highest temperature today in the UK was 32C in Flintshire. Tomorrow, some areas might reach 41/42C. I'm forecast 36C (Met Office).

Comments

[nnozomi]

Take good care in the heat, I hope it's not too awful. Here at least we have infrastructure that expects highs in the 30s all summer. Hoping the foxes will have less energy and you'll have more.

[nineveh_uk]

Since mid morning I'm actually feeling better than yesterday. I suspect the moral is I ought not to have gone for an early walk when I was already tired... That said, it's very, very hot and humid outside, and since I am not on holiday somewhere wonderful, I'm very glad not to be having to go anywhere.

[azdak]

I actually raised a leveret once. Bexi found it in the snow on a farm track when she was ten and the internet told me to feed it milk for kittens via a syringe (both of which I got from the vet). It grew up to be a fine young hare and then one day it ran away, only to discover it didn’t like being a wild hare, so it followed two children home from school. Their parents correctly assumed it must be a tame hare, so they asked around the village if anyone had lost one and so we got it back. The next time it ran away, it never came back, so I assume something ate it. And that’s my leveret story!

[nineveh_uk]

How exciting! It is impressive you managed to rear it. I will have to believe that it ran away and discovered sex, and thus joined the Circle of Life in a happier way

[white_hart]

Apparently it hit 36.7 at the Radcliffe Observatory meteorological station at 2pm, which is a new record.

[nineveh_uk]

That is really very hot for Oxford.

[carbonel]

I don't do very well with heat. Despite that, I am heading to Windsor in a few days for a week-long all-hands company meeting. Then another week in London, then off to Istanbul for a family wedding.

I seriously hope I don't end up regretting these life choices more than I already do.

[nineveh_uk]

I hope that your hotels all have functioning air conditioning!

Have a great time in Istanbul, which I now realise it is 20 years since I went to as part of my first 'grown up' holiday, to Turkey. A wedding there sounds very exciting.