A Full-Time Job

I’ve decided that trying to stay cool feels like a full-time job. I know that many places on earth regularly have higher temperatures than we’ve been having, but at least (in the developed world) they have adapted - with air conditioning, with the way they design and build houses or other buildings, and just with the way they arrange their days and live their lives.

I’ve lived in and visited places with much higher temperatures, but I’ve always been able to ‘escape’ into the cool. Managing the heat in ENGLAND, especially when it goes on and on and on, is a much bigger effort. I’m constantly shutting windows and blinds, then later opening them all up again. Or vice versa. I sit in dark rooms in the afternoon. I’ve changed my normal routines, and right now, while we still don’t have a hosepipe ban (yet!), I spend a big chunk of my evening watering my flowers and even some of my hedges. I’m making gallons of iced tea (which I ONLY crave in HOT weather!) and I’m cooking outside which is fun, but sometimes takes longer. I also find I eat much later in the evening, or have a very late lunch and only a snack in the evening.

I’ve not been walking much either. I suppose I should go in the early morning, which would be another topsy turvy change. I love to walk in the evening. Well, yesterday, I went back to the lake, which I hadn’t been to in a long time (see yesterday’s blip). This evening I decided to visit Crazies Hill, near Wargrave. I love this walk, though I don’t come here quite so often. My very first blip was taken in this very field.

So off I went. At about 8pm. It was still a lot hotter than I expected, but I still walked for an hour. Normally I’d see a dozen or more dog walkers this time of evening but I only saw 2. As I checked my weather app, the temperature actually went UP by two degrees in that hour!

It was a cloudy, muggy evening and I didn’t think I was going to see much of a sunset, but I was pleasantly surprised and the sky became very dramatic! If the sunset is ever worth watching, THIS is one of the best places to see it - looking west over Wargrave, with Reading way beyond. A picnic makes it even nicer and I’ve been known to do that too - in every season! But tonight I was happy to get home and sit in the cool of the garden for a couple of hours before bed.

(See Extra photos for 3 more sunset shots)