That rain didn’t come to much. And now next week, they’ve predicted (gulp) two days of the mercury hitting the mid-30s.
I remember being in Italy when it hit 38 once. I thought that was a temperature you’d never see in the UK. It wasn’t humid in Perugia particularly, just the kind of hat-melting sunshine that bakes you like a dry oven. I ate a lot of watermelon, thinking of home and the cool winds of the Home Counties.
True enough, the UK record is 38.7°C - recorded a decade after my student excursions in Perugia - but the boffins think that’ll get smashed on Tuesday, perhaps even up to the 40s! My brain stops working at that heat, so I shall be indoors with the fan on.
Lots of talk about climate change of course. Heatwaves are a talking point, but also a marker post, a glaring reminder of global warming. Even in our lifetime, without graphs or data, it seems obvious that the Earth’s climate is shifting, and that can’t be good.
“Oh it’s just too hot now,” says everyone in Britain, fanning themselves.
“You should’ve been here in the long ‘ot summer of 76” reply the over-50s. “They even made a Minister for Drought!“
“What happened to him?”
“Well, soon as he were in cabinet, it started bloomin’ rainin’ didn’t it?”
Every single heatwave.
Anyway, it is going to be hot next week, regardless of the long hot summer of 1976, and that does need some preparation, if not a government minister.
I’ll probably freeze some water, get the fans on early, take it easy. We should probably get some watermelon too. Always loved that.
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