Ah, the unique dilemmas of Brits in the heat.
While spending all of our miserable winters dreaming about the fabled round yellow thing that you usually need the price of a flight to bask under, when it appears we literally melt down in a puddle of panicky sweat, unable to sleep, unable to exercise, unable to conduct a conversation about anything but the weather.
Part of the problem is, of course, that it is completely out of context for us.
The heat is for holidays involving sunbeds, long drunken evenings, snorkelling and for wearing wide-brimmed hats we wouldn’t usually be seen dead in.
Or for long and glorious bank holidays, most which we spend in our nice air conditioned cars on the M6.
Introducing this sort of weather on days we are expected to get up, take the kids to school, conduct work sensible activities wearing business attire, do job interviews, attend meetings, or indeed any activity that requires a full night, uninterrupted, night’s sleep seem somehow un-British.
The temperatures may only be high enough to be be considered winter in Australia or central America but for us it is heatmageddon.
They laugh scornfully in New Zealand as we cry ‘we’re too hot, I tell you, too hot’.
Crazy and obvious advice is now doing the round for heat-crazed Brits desperate for help on long, soaked, nights.
They range from opening the window (which to be honest even a Brit could have thought of) to putting cold water in a hot water bottle (genius) and putting socks in the fridge (bonkers)
Anything to achieve an equilibrium in our homes which architects have spent decades of work ensuring , with the help of insulation and cladding magic, keep in every little degree of heat at any cost.
That’s why Australians can’t understand why we moan – they have thin walls and air conditioning to keep them company.
We have heat-conducting bubbles to live in complete with a collection of winter-strength duvets, warm flannel pyjamas and a gloriously rubbish fan we bought from the pound shop.
So if we can’t take the heat we have to get out of the country..
Also in the Lancashire Post
