As the legendary poet Nelly once said, ‘it’s getting hot in herre so take off all your clothes’. Who knows what ‘herre’ actually meant but conceptually it was a sound strategy.
Some of you may have spotted that it has indeed been getting a little hot in herre, and indeed therre, over the last couple of days. Knowing The Sun’s penchant for journalistic accuracy and integrity they would likely have reported that Britain was hotter than Venus yesterday and would probably have shown a photo of a skinny man frying an egg on a pavement in Slough. And to be fair it has been a little on the toasty side.
British people aren’t designed for 30+ degree weather. We like to moan when it’s less than 25 degrees but that’s nothing compared to the heights of moaniness (yes it’s a word) that spurts out when it hits 30 degrees.
To be fair ‘holiday heat’ like you get in abroadland (no that’s not a word) is different to British heat. Holiday heat is just hot – and is generally accompanied by pools and cocktails and beaches and reduced feelings of self-consciousness due to being surrounded by strangers and being a bit pissed.
British heat is special – it’s not JUST hot. It’s also STICKY. Words that are never used start popping up in conversation like ‘close’, ‘muggy’, ‘prickly’ and ‘oppressive’. British heat is bad heat it would appear and causes people to hope for thunderstorms to ‘clear the air’. To be fair, overseas heat tends to come with air conditioned bedrooms and that is a key factor in why our heat is a bit of an arsehole by comparison.
In our house the sleeping in heat scenario is intensified by the fact that we don’t have windows open during the evening, for fear of an army of spiders invading. Our assumption is that a family of spiders sits outside each of our bedroom windows waiting to creep indoors the very second a window is cracked open, like the Trojans sitting inside their wooden horse waiting for their moment to pounce. Although the Trojans probably had intentions to maim and destroy rather than just chill out on a wall or in a bath minding their own business.
As if to prove that fact, Sarah had opened the very small top window in little one’s bedroom for a few hours today to reduce the heat and when I went to put him to bed this evening it was like a scene from Arachnophobia in his room. Albeit a deleted scene in which there was just a small solitary long-legged spider chilling on the door.
The monitor in his room is currently showing 31 degrees, which by anyone’s standards is bloody hot to sleep in. We’ve had curtains closed and open windows all day and a fan going, but there’s no way of getting the heat down in the whole of our upstairs. It’s (probably) similar to trying to get a night’s kip in the core of the earth, but little one is certainly making a better job of it than we have been on our lovely memory foam mattress, seemingly designed to store heat and throw it back at you. Meh.
However, the hot weather has been lovely for spending time in the garden. Whilst I’ve been on a 7 day stretch at work, little one has been spending a good amount of time in the activity paddling pool in our garden with Sarah and my parents and loving every second of it! When I got home today he was having a cracking time splashing around and soaking my parents!
So despite the pitfalls of the 2 day British summertime I’m really glad that little one has had the chance to enjoy some sunshine and have some fun, especially given we’re not doing abroadland this year. Let’s hope for a nice thunderstorm tonight though so we can go back to moaning about the shit weather tomorrow…
