“Heatwave”
As someone with a high tolerance of heat and sunny weather, I am not one of those that have been complaining about the “heatwave” we are finally having in the UK. I am really loving it actually. For many weeks we watched other parts of Europe brag/moan about temperatures in excess of 30 degrees on the Celsius scale while we had nothing but rain and sub 20 temperatures.
I think the UK is now one of the warmest parts of Northern Europe - I haven’t looked, but I’m willing to bet that the Mediterranean countries are steaming hot right about now.
There is one mild issue; since our architecture here in the UK wasn’t designed for the heat, there’s a lot of insulation that keeps things warm and sticky at night. If you can’t leave your windows wide open for whatever reason, or you don’t have cross-ventilation, it could be quite uncomfortable at night. Also, unlike in America, most people don’t have AC at home. This is partly why our power grid doesn’t collapse in summer time like you see sometimes across the Atlantic during these weather conditions.
I don’t have cross ventilation in my bedroom, sadly, but I do have an old-school fan. A cheap but strong metallic blade fan that is relatively quiet but extremely efficient in moving the air around and cooling things way down. Some people can’t fall asleep to the noise of a fan, but mine creates a nice white noise that drowns all the noise coming from outside. Some of the lovely noise I get are from cars parked right outside my window - idling engines and irritating music. Don’t even get me started on engine fumes and cigarette smoke.
Orange moon /
Did any of you see the moon yesterday? Apparently it has been like that for a few days and observed across the world. I tried to photograph it with my iPhone yesterday night but couldn’t expose it well enough nor focus on it properly. Instead what I got was this orange glow in the night sky. It’s not yet full moon, but this month’s full moon will be very spectacular indeed. Skywatchers and photographers alike, be prepared.
Apparently the orange hue is due to the various bush fires raging across America at the moment. While the moon is beautiful, it is actually very sad and worrying what is causing it to look beautiful. It’s like when you seen someone with beautiful freckles on their face but realise that it’s skin damage caused by the Sun’s UV light.
Peace & Love,
Adé
30C is hot for us Brits. Must have been hell for those Canadians getting around 50C.
The weather seems to be going haywire with temperature records being broken and massive floods. We should take this as a wake-up call.
I will check out the moon tonight. The sky went an odd colour here after we had a real downpour on Tuesday evening.
It must have been hell. I remember a couple of years ago when it reached 40 in London for 2 days and they had to shut down parts of the Underground. I can't imagine another 10 degrees on top of that.
Your sun is pink also, just a little ... and yes, I can tell you from here in California, where some of that smoke is coming from, that a pink/red sun and orange moon are gorgeous, but problematic ...
San Francisco does not have air conditioning either, so if it gets hot ... same issues EXCEPT the Pacific Ocean is just a few miles west, so a west-facing window is usually sufficient to get a bit of help. But, not always...
Of course, California and your wildfires! I heard a lot of them are started by people throwing their unfinished cigarettes out of their car windows. Crazy.
People just REFUSE to learn ... they cannot see past their nose in terms of how they affect the lives of others.
Totally agree with that.