This week in the UK we have been subject to a heatwave. Well, the media have told us it’s a heatwave although it’s not a heatwave in the sense that I understand, which is weeks and perhaps months of intense heat, drought and hosepipe bans. The media also tends to link the heatwave to things like climate change and the melting of the ice cap and lots of other stuff but to be honest, this heatwave has just been what we used to call summer. That’s right, summer, you know when things get warmer and the sun comes out and the kids get a 6 week school holiday and it stops raining. Well, stops raining for a short while.
To be fair there were one or two really hot days up here in the north west of England. In fact, it might even have been three days. Liz and I put up her small pool in the garden and we got out the barbecue. One day was really hot, so hot that in the evening we were sat in the lounge in as little as clothing as possible, in my case just a pair of shorts. We had the doors open and the fan at full blast. Now I think of it, actually the perfect conditions for a robber/murderer to pop in, tie us up, take our valuables and bump us off. Happily, that didn’t happen but it was a hot and uncomfortable night.
The next day we realised all our usual parasols and sun brollies were a bit knackered so we ordered a small gazebo. Liz’s daughter and grandson were due round for a barbecue and we wanted to keep them out of the direct sun. After about an hour of effort and a surprisingly small amount of bad language, we managed to get the gazebo together and fully installed. Our guests arrived, we all had a bit of a potter about in the pool, ate our food and all was well. I thought about taking the gazebo down but thought otherwise, after all, we were in the middle of a heatwave so keeping it up seemed like good idea.
The next day it was slightly cooler, still warm of course but much pleasanter although a bit of a wind had sprung up. Later, just when we were about to begin an unprecedented third barbecue in a row, it had actually become so windy that we were hanging grimly on to the gazebo to prevent it from taking off. The only option was to take it apart which we did. I think it’s worth noting here how strange it is that things that come in a box will never ever fit back into that same box once you take them apart and try to put them away. Actually, its not only strange but one of the great mysteries of the universe.
Just looking back over my older posts, I see that July is a pretty regular slot for barbecue themed posts. Here’s something I wrote in 2022.
A regular visitor to our barbecues is a large seabird which we have christened CBS. Nothing to do with the American TV channel but that bird is one heck of a Cheeky Bastard Seagull.
He usually arrives on our garden wall and struts around in the manner of an avian Mussolini. If he gets no response from us, he will tend to have a bit of a stretch before going into a major squawking session. Now he has made his presence felt we can expect some more strutting about until we put some bits of sausage or fat from our steak on the wall. He’ll gobble that up with the occasional foray into the sky to fend off any other birds who might be after a nibble before beginning his ritual again. When the gas goes off and he knows no more food will be forthcoming, CBS will usually have a final strut, give us a last squawk and be off into the sky.
These last few weeks however, CBS has not appeared. We’ve saved him some bits and pieces but our familiar feathered friend has not made an appearance. I’ve often wondered what has happened to him. Has he emigrated somewhere? No, surely it’s not the time of the year for birds to migrate? Has he passed away? It’s hard to tell if he was a young or an old bird. Has he been hit by a car trying to peck at some stray leftover sandwich accidentally dropped in the road?
At our last barbecue a large seabird appeared on our wall. At first, we thought it was CBS but there was no strutting or squawking and the bird did seem a little timid. He wouldn’t come close to collect his titbits on the wall. Was he a doppelganger trying to muscle in on CBS’s patch knowing the real CBS has passed away? We’ll never know.
Still on the subject of barbecues, here’s something I wrote in 2021, the year of Covid 19;
Because of Covid and now also because of my sore shoulder (did I mention the trapped nerve and my shoulder pain?) we haven’t used our motorhome much this year. We did have a run out to Yorkshire a while back and a pub stop over before that but otherwise the only trip was a run out to the garage for the MOT. Liz had bought a small portable gas barbecue ready for our travels and it was lying unused in the corner so we thought it was time to give it a trial run.
I do like barbecues but the flip side is that they are dirty and smelly and greasy. I always start off with some dry wood, pack in the charcoal and light up with some firelighters. Sometimes we’ll get a slow burner barbecue so we end up supping too much wine while we wait for things to get going. Other times we’ll get the reverse, a barbecue that catches quickly and voom, goes off in a big hot burn. That’s usually when we are expecting a slow burner and are still finishing off the salad and so when we sit down I realise I’m going to have to slap all the meat on quickly before the coals burn themselves out. The really annoying thing is when we are in the motorhome and I realise that after the barby has finished, I am somehow going to have to clean this horrible, greasy mess and get it packed away so we can move on.
So how have things gone with the gas barby? Pretty smoothly actually. None of that messing about with the coals and lighter fluid. The portable job snaps quickly together, slap in the calor gas cylinder, press the starter and hey presto, we are ready to barbecue. The other great thing about this one is that there is a water reservoir that catches all the grease and fat. Just swill that away somewhere in a corner of the garden, a quick wipe with a paper towel and we are all ready for next time. Barbecuing with gas, I love it!
Back to that unprecedented third barbecue.
In 2025 we are still using that little gas barbecue, so much easier than lighting all those coals. On the day we removed the gazebo the wind finally died down a little and we settled down for another meal. We started with some Padron peppers and some baby corn (so much nicer than full grown sweetcorn) followed by a couple of small steaks and some kofta kebabs with some French wine to wash it all down. It was almost but not quite like being on one of our French holidays.
The next day it was raining and normal British weather had resumed. The ‘heatwave’ was over.
What to do next: Here are a few options.
Share this post on your favourite social media!
Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!
Listen to my podcast Click here.
Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.
Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.
Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.
OK so let me get this right, the extreme heat warning is for just two days, not the whole of the summer. The expected heat is going to reach temperatures of 40 degrees C, which works out at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, which is pretty much the temperatures we Brits are looking for when we jet off to Spain for our summer holidays. Is it worth getting excited about? Well, for a month of 100 plus degrees yes but for two days, I don’t think so.
It was a warm night but hardly roasting. I woke early at about 7am. I stayed in bed and went through my emails and checked my weekend blog stats. I washed and shaved and made a cup of tea. I checked for mail, the proper mail that comes to the post box. Nothing so far. I was expecting a pair of shoes I had bought on eBay and wanted to intercept them before Liz arose and threw the usual Imelda Marcos cracks at me that I usually throw at her. While I was having my tea Liz came in and checked the mail. A parcel was there for me. It was the expected shoes: cue the expected Imelda Marcos gags.
Tuesday started out very warm. Too warm in fact for any unnecessary cooking heating up the house so we had boiled eggs for breakfast. I got myself settled in the garden but then everything clouded over and we even had a brief rain shower. After that it did get pretty warm. A strong wind started up but soon died out. According to the news the projected temperature of 42 degrees C didn’t happen but 40.3C recorded down south somewhere is apparently a new UK temperature record.
Wednesday was windy, dull and considerably cooler, that was it I suppose for the so called heatwave. It has of course been a pretty hot week for UK politics. Boris Johnson has been forced to resign as Prime Minister (his last words to parliament were apparently ‘hasta la vista, baby’) and the Conservative party are busy electing a new leader. The two candidates remaining after the Conservative MP’s whittled the candidates down to two are Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, neither of whom I’d be interested in voting for but as I’m not a member of the Conservative party, I won’t even get a chance.
Letters from an Unknown Author! 