How to survive a heatwave

I titled this blog in such a way so that people in twenty years time can google stuff and see exactly what we went through – those who survived the 1976 Heatwave showed no such consideration to us did they! I suppose they could blame the lack of social media…. About that… social media makes EVERYTHING seem a hundred times worse. If you believed everything you read you’d believe that multiple hospitals and surgeries had to close due to the heat, roads melted and swallowed up whole houses, 50,000 lightning strikes hit the UK in ONE HOUR igniting several billion acres of fields…

It wasn’t quite like that, but it was a hot one and there were times when it did appear as if the whole country had gone mad. The heatwave began with the smell of smoke wafting into Hampshire from Salisbury Plain, much of which is a desginated military firing zone. Because of this and unexploded ordinance the risk to people putting out the fire was deemed far greater than those who the smoke was wafting towards. Rightly so! Then there were the ‘central reservation fires…’ The episodes every few days when someone on the motorway would chuck a cigarette end into the centre of the road and ignite the long grasses growing there. There were the threats of hose-pipe bans (South hasn’t had one so far), and the days when being alive just seemed realllllly difficult at thirty degree heat and 28 degree C for sleeping in.

People now talk about the Heatwave and blame it for their inadequacies or inability to do something… Oh… Forgot to take the bin out? It was the heatwave… Driving like an idiot…? Heatwave. And so on. Work carried on however and in my particular air conditioned office (rare around here), I still went to work with a cardigan and scarf. This completely messed up my body temperature when I went outside of course and I spent most evenings alternating between shivering and nearly passing out. But I can’t imagine the working day without air con!

Anyway, I can’t really remember how many days it’s been but we left June in sweltering temperatures and it’s now the 28th July, for some places in the UK there has been 50 consecutive days without rain. We’re not used to that – we’re basically Seattle Lite here!

Oh and the time between the last blog entry and these latest ones…? Blame the heatwave. I do.

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The Beast from the East

What a name for a weather front! But it was all true – and the chilling temperatures of The Beast met the snow that came with Storm Emma to give us a fantastic few days of proper weather. I’ve seen snow before and I’ve known it cold, but neither of those have been experienced at the levels we’ve had for the past few days. We’ve had -7 celcius combined with wind chill of -13 celcius and some snow drifts are around 3 – 4 feet high in our area of England.

Luckily, I didn’t need to travel today and was able to wrap up warm with the uni books. I took a well earned break exploring the countryside and grabbing a few photographs though, thanks to my Dad’s 4 x 4.

We found a Lapwing (bird) on our travels! He/she was sitting on the side of the road, freezing. We didn’t think it would make it but my Mum wrapped it up in her scarf and I think it spent the afternoon by their fire thawing out and is now doing well again!

We also (thought) we rescued an elderly lady making her way down the road. It really wasn’t safe for anyone to be walking but she was braving it – we asked her where she was going and took her there, turns out she was going to someone’s house to do their ironing! It was sort of a good deed but gosh… dedication to the job there.

The snow has stopped and a thaw is forecast over the weekend – I’ve never seen such constant snow before, followed by freezing rain – which really is a thing. We have intermittent heating and hopefully that will be fixed over the weekend but in the meantime we’re wrapping up warm and keeping calm! Enjoy the photos… it’s been a while hasn’t it…

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