3 minute read
The Last Word
FEELIN’ HOT HOT HOT
Iwent for a run this morning. Quite a long run for me, 15k, but I am writing this on 20 July in the midst of a mini heatwave so decided to get up early, 4.30am, in a bid to miss the worst of the heat.
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It worked but as a friend remarked
“No sane person sets an alarm that starts with a 4.” No argument there!
It was early enough to be lovely and cool but by the time I got back, even at that time of the morning, it was getting to the point where you’d seriously consider not going out at all let alone for a run.
It set me thinking a bit about how we just aren’t set up for extreme
weather in this country, hence we generally complain about it. A LOT. Every time the sun comes out the newspapers are filled with headlines like ‘UK hotter than the Sahara this weekend!!!’ and the BBC website offers advice on how to cope in extreme heat (very informative it was too actually)
I’m actually not of the opinion that we are a nation of complainers (although we do excel at it natch) I just think the extremes of weather we experience are actually few and far between so we don’t have the kit or the mentality to deal with it when it happens. We have friends who live in South Australia where, in the summer, they will have weeks and weeks of 40°C temperatures (that’s just over 104°F - it sounds hotter in fahrenheit). All the houses there, though, have air conditioning which makes the day-to-day experience of that sort of heat much more bearable. Compare that to here where you have to wander listlessly along the freezer aisles of the local supermarket to cool down. On the other side of the coin friends in Canada, in winter, regularly have to plug their cars into the electricity supply of their house overnight as it gets so cold the engine block may
crack!!! Another of the downsides of the extreme cold is that so much salt is spread on the roads to help with the ice and snow that it reduces the life of cars to about 5 years! (I haven’t fact checked this it’s just my friend telling me but it sounds feasible.)
Compare life continuing in Canada through 10ft snow drifts with winters in the UK. If we get the smallest amount of snow everything comes to a halt - my daughter’s school sent them all home for a snowday when there was less than 1cm of snow on the ground a year or so ago. Can you imagine the uproar though if Wiltshire Council spent a million quid on proper snow ploughs (that’s how much they cost btw, who knew?!) which then sat in the depot for 5 years as we endured a few ‘unseasonably mild’ winters?! It’s not like we really ever get enough snow to warrant the expense in any case. How about if all offices, shops, houses had to, by law, have air conditioning? It would be great for the 6 days a year it would be needed but otherwise just sit there idle and not justifying the large amount of money needed to have it there.
I’m pretty happy being able to complain if I’m honest. “It’s too hot/ cold/snowy, icy/windy (delete as appropriate)! Instead I’ll just be grabbing an ice cream and staying inside to protect my delicate English skin.
Phil Rockliffe
