It’s autumn here (or fall for you northern hemisphere habitants). This time three weeks ago it was nearing the end of a two and a half week heatwave. A heatwave is apparently a period of days where it’s over 35 degrees celsius and the temperature cit certainly reached that, and more. The only thing that kept me going (and others I’m sure) was the fact that it had to be over one day. It is hard to imagine the weather outside being cool though when you go outside all you think about is how hot it is.
One night I lay on the couch, the fan going overhead, the windows wide open wishing for a whisper of a breeze to blow out some of the hot air and realised that I was getting used to it being really warm at night. On these nights I would have liked to have a mosquito net to sleep outside on the trampoline because it was cooler than sleeping inside. I don’t have central cooling so fans and cool showers were my method of keeping cool. I also live in a house that’s over 100 years old therefore it keeps cooler than many modern houses. If I lived in a more modern house I would probably need air conditioning to cope.
I also wondered what people did before electricity when fans weren’t an option, let alone air conditioning. I couldn’t imagine trying to sleep without a breeze, even a warm breeze. I guess they just had to get used to it.
It was in the back of my mind that once our heatwave was over, autumn would be here with the darker evenings, the crisp feel in the air and memories of hot days when swimming in the ocean was a real pleasure and maybe some rain – please some rain.
I’m glad I live in a place where there are definite seasons, and I appreciate these seasons more as time goes on. I look forward to winter so I can light the fire and have cosy warm nights. I love the summer because it means swimming, and autumn and spring are great respites from summer and winter. It also means that the things I don’t like about the four seasons will always change pretty soon.
This is my entry for the Mammablogga group writing project.
