Tag Archives: sun

Heatwaves and Barbecues

Posted on by Steve Higgins

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.

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Curry, Tapas and a Read in the Sun

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Over on the front page of this site you will find a whole lot of stuff about me. It tells you that I have always wanted to be a writer, that I enjoy writing as well as Formula One racing, classic cinema and books. In one segment it mentions that I like dining out, in fact it says that dining out is one of the great experiences of life and so I thought I’d start with that, great experiences and see where that leads me.

One of the great experiences of life, as far as I’m concerned anyway is a pretty simple one. It involves lying on a sunbed and relaxing on a hot, or even just warm day. Throw in a dip in the pool and that sensation of lying in the sun while you dry off is made even more satisfying.

Of course, doing that in the UK at any time of the year is not always possible, especially in February which is why for perhaps the last ten years, if you want to get hold of me at this time of the year, you’ll find me in Lanzarote.

What can I tell you about this place? Looking over on Wikipedia I see the Canary Islands emerged from the sea bed during a volcanic eruption about 15 million years ago. There is apparently some evidence the Phoenicians were the first settlers here although the first known records of the islands come from Pliny the elder, the Roman scholar.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, nothing is recorded about the Canary Islands until 999, when the Arabs arrived at the islands. In 1336, a ship arrived from Lisbon under the guidance of Genoese navigator Lancelotto Malocello, who used the alias ‘Lanzarote da Framqua’ which is where the island’s name comes from. Today Lanzarote is part of Spain.

When we first came here round about ten years ago, we hired a car and drove round the island. We visited the volcano which was pretty much what you’d expect a volcano to look like, although the drive down a very narrow winding road in a coach towards the centre of it was a little scary. Otherwise, apart from the usual touristy stuff, there wasn’t that much to see and we quickly realised that the Marina Rubicon in Playa Blanca is by far our favourite place. Our rented villa is on the bus route and only five minutes walk from both the bus stop and the local shop so renting a car is not a particular concern.

What else do I do on Lanzarote? Well I read a lot of books.

Crossfire by Jim Marrs

I do love a JFK assassination book and this is a good one. It covers pretty much everything there is to know about the assassination from Oswald to Ruby, the Texas School Book Depository, the Grassy Knoll, the CIA, the FBI, the Warren Commission, the House Select Committee on assassinations and everything in between. Who really did it? I’m not sure. Was Lee Oswald the killer or just a patsy? Again I’m not sure but a lot of the evidence against Oswald was compromised. The officers who found the assassin’s rifle said it was a Mauser, not a Manlicher Carcarno. Later all but one of the officers said they were mistaken. The one who said he wasn’t mistaken was later murdered.

Who were the people on the Grassy Knoll with Secret Service IDs when all the SS were in the President’s motorcade? The shells found at the scene where the fleeing Oswald supposedly shot officer Tippet  were marked by a police officer. Later, when asked to identify the shells, his marks weren’t there. I could go on and on. Maybe Oswald did it, maybe he didn’t. Perhaps he was a patsy as he claimed. Will the records which President Trump will release show what really happened? I doubt it but either way, the JFK assassination is such an fascinating mystery.

The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

I absolutely loved this book. I mentioned it last week in a post about detectives but it really is a fabulous read and the film with Humphrey Bogart follows it closely, especially the dialogue.  If you have never read it or seen the film, it’s about Sam Spade, a detective who happens on a group of people all after the mysterious Maltese Falcon statuette worth untold millions and at the same time seeks to find his partner’s murderer.

The only real difference between the film and the book is that in the book, Caspar Gutman’s daughter makes a brief appearance but not in the film. In the film Gutman infers that Miss Wanderley has stolen a thousand dollar bill and Bogart as Sam Spade demands that Gutman confesses to stealing it or stands for a frisk. In the book, Spade surprisingly thinks Miss Wanderley has got the note and forces her to strip naked to show that she didn’t steal it. Only then does he challenge Mr Gutman.

I have to say I have found the works of Raymond Chandler a much better read but this particular story I loved almost as much as the film.

Another book by Hammett, The Thin Man, wasn’t as good. Detective Nick Charles is no longer a detective but many others seem to think he is and he seems to feel compelled to look into a case of murder, even though he doesn’t seem that interested. Perhaps that was why I lost interest early on and kept putting this book down in favour of others.

Going back to the thing I mentioned earlier, the one about dining being one of the great experiences of life, well, only a few minutes walk from our rented villa, just next to the shop I told you about is a really fabulous Indian restaurant. No need to get the bus to the Marina or the centre of Playa Blanca as we can just walk to the restaurant. The funny thing is, Liz and I are part of a curry club and once a month we meet at a curry house in St Annes and settle down for a curry and some chit chat. I was actually thinking of perhaps going every two months or even leaving the curry club altogether. Well, I like curry but I’d had all I really wanted to eat in that particular restaurant and, nice though it is, I perhaps fancied going to the Chinese on that day or the local Italian.

Now however, I seem to be once again hooked on curry. Our local curry house here in Lanzarote, The Indian Gourmet, is a very friendly place. We have established our favourite table. The staff know that Liz hates coriander and they have marked us down as preferring medium rather than hot as regards curry strength. The chef always comes out to see if we have enjoyed his creation and always recommends what we can try next time and so on. The curry house then has become our sort of go to place if we want to eat out and don’t fancy travelling far.

The Client by John Grisham

Time for another book and this one was a great holiday read. It’s about an eleven year old boy who witnesses a suicide but before the lawyer kills himself, he tells the boys -Mark and his little brother Ricky- where the dead body of a murdered US senator has been hidden. The senator was the victim of a mob ‘hit’ and Mark won’t tell the police or the FBI about the body as he is concerned for the safety of his mother and brother. When he and his mother are in hospital staying with his brother Ricky, as he has gone into shock, Mark contacts a lawyer and a big legal stand off begins with the FBI. Things eventually get settled but I can’t help wondering why the boy wouldn’t trust the FBI or even why he would tell them about the body in the first place. Of course if he had then there wouldn’t be a story. Either way this was a great holiday read and the narrative kept me interested all the way to the end. I didn’t realise it was also made into a film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon which I must remember to look out for.

Another of our favourite places is the Berruga Tapas bar which we have been visiting for years. Sadly, a lot of our favourite staff members have moved on in the intervening year since our last visit. The boss is still here though, Juan who always remembers us and greets us warmly and the food is still the same mix of Spanish tapas and English snack food like burger and chips and so on. It’s a rough and ready sort of place but it’s also a lot of fun. And we do like the freebie at the end of the night; a shot of vodka caramel in an ice cold glass.

So, what will we be having tonight? Tapas or curry or something new perhaps?

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Checking the Temperature and the British Summer

Posted on by Steve Higgins

This week’s post is an old one from 2014 but still relevant this summer!

Hot, boiling, sweltering, humid: Any way you look at it the UK is hot! We can’t complain about a rainy summer this year but in the UK we are just not prepared for heat. In Spain for instance it’s perfect for a hot, sunny, holiday. They have their cool outdoor pools, their outdoor bars and restaurants, and if we want to cool down more then we can go inside where traditionally built Spanish properties with their tiled interiors and whitewashed exteriors positively hug any coolness that might be about.

In the UK with our insulated walls and roofing, our houses seem to hug the warmth, it’s hotter in our homes than outside and when we leave our windows open to cool down you can guarantee some inconsiderate noisy sod will be playing his or her music far too loud, Well, that’s the British summer for you.

Something that really bugs me lately is the way the metric system has started to grip it’s clammy fingers around the UK media. When I’m watching a rather interesting documentary on the BBC I’m not interested in the least about how many metres long this or that is, or how many kilometres it is to there from here, I want to know it in feet and inches, I want to know in miles! I’m English and OK when I’m travelling in Europe I accept kilometres and KPH and do the mental adjustment but in the UK I shouldn’t have to do that. On the motorway I understand what it means when I hit the 300 yard marker to the next exit. I know what a yard is, I can visualise it. I understand that the next services are twenty miles away because I understand what a mile is and how long a mile is so don’t start putting kilometres on the motorway to confuse me!

image courtesy wikipedia

image courtesy wikipedia

And, coming back to the heat, when did all this Celsius start creeping in. The temperature today will be a maximum of twenty degrees? What is that about? If you are going to tell me the temperature tell me in the Fahrenheit that I have been  brought up with and understand then I know that seventy is hot and eighty is even hotter!

This is the time of year when the papers will say one day, it was hotter in Dartford that it was in Barcelona or hotter in Brighton than the Costa Del Sol! Interesting. Of course, they don’t say that happened on one day out of three hundred and sixty five or that the last time it happened it was 1973 but either way it’s still pretty interesting. But, and here’s something you should know, on the day the temperature  hits 37 degrees Celcius in somewhere like Blackpool the papers won’t tell you that. No, what they will say will be this ‘Temperature hits 100 degrees in Blackpool!’‘

Yes, the big one hundred, that’s Fahrenheit of course . .

Enjoyed this post? Well, if you did why not try my book, Floating In Space? Click the links at the top of the page for more information or HERE to go straight to Amazon!

 

In the Summertime when the Weather is fine

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Hot, boiling, sweltering, humid: Any way you look at it the UK, just recently, has been hot! (I should stipulate here: Has been hot! By the time you read this it will probably be raining!)

We can’t complain about a rainy summer this year, so far, but in the UK we are just not prepared for heat. Spain for instance is perfect for a hot, sunny, holiday. It has its cool outdoor pools, outdoor bars and restaurants, and if we want to cool down more then we can go inside where traditionally built properties with their tiled interiors and whitewashed exteriors are an oasis of cool, a short walk from the heat of the outdoors.

In the UK with our insulated walls and roofing, our houses seem to hug the warmth, it’s hotter in our homes than outside and when we leave our windows open to cool down you can guarantee some inconsiderate noisy sod will be playing their music far too loud, Well, that’s the British summer for you.

Something that really bugs me lately is the way the metric system has started to grip its clammy fingers around the UK media. When I’m watching a rather interesting documentary on the BBC I’m not interested in the least about how many metres long this or that is, or how many kilometres it is to there from here, I want to know it in feet and inches, I want to know in miles! I’m English and OK when I’m travelling in Europe I accept kilometres and KPH and do the mental adjustment but in the UK I shouldn’t have to do that, especially when I’m watching a BBC documentary.

On the motorway I understand what it means when I hit the 300 yard marker to the next exit. I know what a yard is, I can visualise it. I understand that the next services are twenty miles away because I understand what a mile is and how long a mile is so don’t start putting kilometres on the motorway to confuse me!

Image credit: Daily Express

And, coming back to the heat, when did all this Celsius stuff start creeping in? The temperature today will be a maximum of twenty degrees? What is that about? If you are going to tell me the temperature tell me in the Fahrenheit that I have been  brought up with and understand and then I will actually be able to tell whether the temperature is cold, hot or even very hot!

I wonder if, now that our nation is committed to Brexit and we are finally leaving the EU with all its nasty metric ideas, we will return to imperial measurements? After all, our prospective business clients in the USA still measure things in feet, inches and miles, just like we used to do!

This is the time of year when the papers will say that it was hotter in Birmingham than in Barcelona or hotter in Brighton than the Costa del Sol! Interesting. Of course, they don’t say that it happened on one day out of three hundred and sixty five or that the last time it happened was in 1973 but either way it’s still pretty interesting. But, and here’s something you should know, on the day the temperature  hits 37 degrees Celsius in somewhere like Blackpool the papers won’t tell you that. No, what they will say will be this ‘Temperature hits 100 degrees in Blackpool!’‘

Yes, the big one hundred, that’s Fahrenheit of course . .

Enjoyed this post? Well, if you did why not try my book, Floating In Space? Click the links at the top of the page for more information or HERE to go straight to Amazon!

Thoughts from a Sun lounger (Part 4)

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Sun LoungerI don’t think there is any nicer feeling than to take a dip in a swimming pool and then after a few lengths, return to your sun lounger and lie there peacefully while the hot sun dries your body. You can feel little rivulets of water dripping away and in time the sun will gradually dry you. It’s almost like a sort of rebirth or a least a refreshing of the soul. The only sounds in this remote hamlet where we are staying are the gentle breeze swaying through the branches of a nearby tree, the quiet humming of insects, some bird song and the occasional drone of a far away car or tractor.

You might be thinking hang on, why is this guy waxing lyrical about lying on a sun bed? Yes it’s that time of year again, holiday time. Once again Liz and I have travelled to France to spend time in a beautiful gîte in the Cher region of France.

Travelling down here was a little bit of a trial though. Coming down the M6 in  the north-west we had to travel through the roadworks for the new Smart motorway scheme. I don’t know that Smart is really the right name for this concept but the idea is that the traffic runs along the hard shoulder in the busy periods thus shifting more traffic. So the experts say, anyway. Whether that will happen I really don’t know but at the moment the whole area is bit of a nightmare and when we finally got through that we came across more delays round about junction 13. Throw in some torrential rain and spray, creating really poor driving conditions and you begin to get the picture. Anyway, we made it to the terminal in Folkestone with about ten minutes to spare; many thanks to Liz for her fabulous driving.

One thing I noticed during the journey down here was the enormous amount of tyre carcasses in the central reservation. It really seems to me that Highways England need to pull their finger out and clean up the motorway otherwise I may just start up a scrap rubber company and pick up all those discarded tyres, and believe me I’ve counted a hell of a lot of tyres on the way south. I reckon I can make an absolute fortune flogging all those tyres to Goodyear or Pirelli or even some rubber recycling company. Come on Highways, get your act together!

French phrase book After the hell of UK motorway travel, the roads of France are just a delight. OK, it might be busy round Paris and other large towns but out in the countryside driving is once again an enjoyable experience. Stopping at the services is much nicer too. Not for us the packed UK services charging ridiculous amounts for a cup of tea. The French aires are quiet and picturesque. Nice rural stopping places with picnic tables and nice clean toilets. Lovely.

In the UK I have had a great deal of trouble with my back. The doctor offered me pain killers which I declined, well, I must admit I did take some, the pain was that bad. Anyway I asked to be referred to a physiotherapist. Get the problem sorted out at the source I thought. This gets complicated here so bear with me: I started off with a telephone appointment, one in which you are supposed to make an ‘actual’ appointment. It did not go well because although I rang at the specified time, I was given several messages to listen to and options to choose so when I eventually got through, the lady at the other end thought I was late for an ‘actual’ appointment, not a telephone appointment and could not arrange it for me as I was two minutes late. Anyway, to cut a long story short I spoke to her boss and made an appointment (an ‘actual’ appointment) and arrived on the day only to find that my ‘actual’ appointment had been cancelled due to a bereavement at the hospital. Pity they didn’t tell me in advance. (They said that they had left a message on my mobile – which I never received, although on the same day my garage had managed to leave me a message about my car and my brother had also left a message. Strange that two others had no problem leaving messages.)

Anyway, with me so far? Another appointment was duly made and then two days before that appointment I received a letter saying that had been cancelled too. I called  to complain only to be told I had cancelled the appointment! I most certainly did not, I said in my best aggrieved customer voice. I eventually spoke to a manager and she managed to arrange another date which fitted into my calendar just nicely between work and leaving for France.

When I finally found myself face to face with a physiotherapist, or at least someone who claimed to be a physiotherapist, he spent a lot of time asking me questions about my pain, which, when it first occurred three months previously had been very severe but now it wasn’t so bad, in fact the actual spot in the middle of my back seemed OK but the pain was now in my neck and lower back. Sadly, those areas were not the ones that I had been referred for via my GP. Now those two areas, the neck and lower back, happen to be a matter of inches from the source of the original pain so let me throw out a crazy mad concept here: could they be related? Well, we’ll never know because as my physio pointed out yet again; my GP had not referred me for those areas! After a lengthy consultation of which perhaps five minutes was actual hands on my back stuff, my physio declared my back was ‘mechanically’ sound. How did he explain the pain I asked? Well, that was a muscular issue due to my ‘sedentary’ life style. As we were on the way out he mentioned it was perhaps ‘not worth seeing me again.’

Interesting. Perhaps the problem solving concept was not something this guy covered at university, perhaps they don’t even teach that kind of stuff any more. I know that if I was a physio and someone came to me with back pain my job would be trying to find the source of that pain and cure it or ease it or suggest further treatment for my patient. It’s rather like having a problem with your car and telling the customer, well, we can’t fix that, perhaps it’s time to get a new motor. In this case, no new motor is available! I’m tempted to apply my usual rule here, that names have been changed to protect the innocent but Clifton Hospital in St Annes, Lancashire, you have gone way down in my estimation!

Anyway, the temperature here in our little village is currently in the 90s. (Fahrenheit of course. If you want that in Celsius, I don’t do metric, work it out yourself!) Time for a read, perhaps a short doze, then another swim in the pool. After all, exercise is good for your back!

Make sure your click back here next Saturday for at look at my Holiday Book Bag!

If you liked this post, why not try my book, Floating In Space. Click the links at the top of the page for more information!

More Random thoughts from a (French) Sun Lounger

Posted on by Steve Higgins

sunloungerlogoI really do love France. I love travelling here, driving down the picturesque country lanes. I love the quiet sleepy villages. Driving is a joy here, even on the major roads. OK, I’m sure that in Paris or any of the other major towns driving is just the usual nightmare that it is in London or Manchester but here in the countryside, driving is just a joy.

What is a little annoying is the French system of signing. I’m talking about traffic signs, directional signs. You follow the signs, for instance on the way here we followed signs for the town of Nevers for a while, then we were looking for a right turn and none appeared. OK one did appear but it was unsigned. After a while we realised we must have missed something, so we turned back and guess what, coming from the other direction the road is signed for Nevers but not from the original direction. Maybe there is someone in the French road sign office thinking ‘Ha! Got those English idiots again!’

On holiday in France Liz and I spend a lot of time at the weekend at vide greniers (car boot sales to you) and brocantes, a sort of antiques/ flea market. It always surprises me how well attended these events are in the French countryside and bad weather does not seem to put people off at all. In the UK the first sign of rain or even dark clouds and it’s ‘get the stuff in the van -we’re off!’ The French are made of sturdier stuff and if it rains, OK, get the covers over the goods and it’s off to the wine tent for some vin rouge and some frites while it clears up. I often wonder though, if there isn’t a fete or vide grenier on, what do French people do? They certainly know how to keep quiet! Read this previous post for a few ideas on what they get up to!

The French have a strong connection with food and in particular bread or ‘le pain’ as they call it here. On arriving at our gite in the french village of Germigny L’Exempt we began to unload the car and numerous neighbours came out to talk and advise us. One French chap came over, said bonjour and proceeded to babble away at a ferocious pace in his native tongue. It took me a full ten minutes before I could stop him and say I didn’t speak french that well. ‘Je ne parle pas bien francais!’ Did that stop him? Well, for a moment, then he began again only at a slightly reduced speed. Did we have bread? If not he had some to spare for this evening but in the morning we had to be at the bakers by twelve otherwise, well various dire consequences were explained, none of which I understood, but of course a Frenchman must have bread.

Here in France it reminds me of the UK twenty years ago. Shops closed on Sundays and bank holidays. Unthinkable isn’t it? Over in Calais they tempt British day trippers over to huge hypermarkets and wine stores selling so called ‘duty free’ merchandise at inflated prices. Stores may be open on Sunday there but here in the countryside that is not the case. Of course the bakeries do open on Sunday morning. After all next to liberty and fraternity it is bread that really matters to the French.

Photo by the author.

Photo by the author.

Anyway, one last thought about France. Why is it that whenever I arise from the swimming pool (it’s quite a nice pool, check out the picture) wet and dripping after a welcome cooling dip and looking for my towel, some irritating French fly seems to want to buzz round my head? Just by our gite, there is a road that brings traffic in to our small village. As you approach our holiday home there is a rise and one can see a car rise up and then dip down again as it comes towards us. As I am about to get out of the pool I can just imagine a Frenchman and his son, heading back home with the thought of lunch on their mind. As they crest the small rise the boy looks out at a man rising from a swimming pool and then turns to his father and asks, “Why was that man waving his hands about and doing a dance when he gets out of the pool?”

The father thinks for a moment and then replies, “Il est Anglais!” (He is English!)

If you liked this post then why not try my novel, Floating In Space? Click the links at the top of the page for more information.

Checking the Temperature and the British Summer

Posted on by Steve Higgins

checking the temperatureHot, boiling, sweltering, humid: Any way you look at it the UK is hot! We can’t complain about a rainy summer this year but in the UK we are just not prepared for heat. In Spain for instance it’s perfect for a hot, sunny, holiday. They have their cool outdoor pools, their outdoor bars and restaurants, and if we want to cool down more then we can go inside where traditionally built Spanish properties with their tiled interiors and whitewashed exteriors positively hug any coolness that might be about.

In the UK with our insulated walls and roofing, our houses seem to hug the warmth, it’s hotter in our homes than outside and when we leave our windows open to cool down you can guarantee some inconsiderate noisy sod will be playing his or her music far too loud, Well, that’s the British summer for you.

Something that really bugs me lately is the way the metric system has started to grip it’s clammy fingers around the UK media. When I’m watching a rather interesting documentary on the BBC I’m not interested in the least about how many metres long this or that is, or how many kilometres it is to there from here, I want to know it in feet and inches, I want to know in miles! I’m English and OK when I’m travelling in Europe I accept kilometres and KPH and do the mental adjustment but in the UK I shouldn’t have to do that. On the motorway I understand what it means when I hit the 300 yard marker to the next exit. I know what a yard is, I can visualise it. I understand that the next services are twenty miles away because I understand what a mile is and how long a mile is so don’t start putting kilometres on the motorway to confuse me!

image courtesy wikipedia

image courtesy wikipedia

And, coming back to the heat, when did all this Celsius start creeping in. The temperature today will be a maximum of twenty degrees? What is that about? If you are going to tell me the temperature tell me in the Fahrenheit that I have been  brought up with and understand then I know that seventy is hot and eighty is even hotter!

This is the time of year when the papers will say one day, it was hotter in Dartford that it was in Barcelona or hotter in Brighton than the Costa Del Sol! Interesting. Of course, they don’t say that happened on one day out of three hundred and sixty five or that the last time it happened it was 1973 but either way it’s still pretty interesting. But, and here’s something you should know, on the day the temperature  hits 37 degrees Celcius in somewhere like Blackpool the papers won’t tell you that. No, what they will say will be this ‘Temperature hits 100 degrees in Blackpool!’‘

Yes, the big one hundred, that’s Fahrenheit of course . .

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