Hot and Sweaty

There's a post title guaranteed to pull in the dirty raincoat brigade, but it's a pretty fair description of how I've been for the past few days.  It's amazing how we spend most of the year craving Summer weather of the kind we've been experiencing this week, yet when it arrives all we can do is complain about the heat.  That said, my main complaint is that this latest hot spell arrived this week when I'm back at work, rather than last week when I was off.  Mind you, if it had been this hot and sunny last week, my kitchen would never have got painted as I would have been out wandering around the countryside, or down on the coast.  Whenever I hear the siren call of fine weather (and I'm off work) I find myself lured out of the house and into the country.  By contrast, when it is sunny and I'm working, I end up spending what feels like hours in a scorching hot car. It doesn't take long for the interior of a car to become a furnace on a day like today - and it just seems to stay that way, no matter how many windows you open or how high a setting you have the fans on.  Of course, I could try using the air conditioning, but I've never been convinced that it actually works.  Plus, judging by my experiences with the air conditioning in previous cars I've owned, not only would it put up the fuel consumption, but it would dry out my throat, leaving me coughing all day.

There's something about driving for work in hot weather which just makes one hotter and sweatier than when driving on holiday.  Part of it is that, for work, you are always in a hurry to get from one place to another - when I'm on holiday, I tend to drive to wherever I'm going in a far more leisurely fashion: I like to enjoy the journey when it is on my own time.   Also, when I'm working, it's all 'start-stop', which means that the car is sitting idle for periods when the heat can build up inside again.  Moreover, it's also bloody hot outside the car, but there's still enough of a differential in temperature that as soon as I'm back in the driving seat, the sweat starts rolling off of me all over again.  Still, at least today I didn't end up feeling exhausted and dehydrated, as I did yesterday when I finally got home.  Sure, my shirt was severely sweat stained, but I didn't feel too bad.  Which is partly down to the fact that I took more water with me today and remembered to take a hat with me - I increasingly find that wandering around in the sun hatless leaves me with a mild touch of sun stroke.  The Calippo ice lolly I had when I finished today helped too - I'd spent all afternoon thinking about that orange Calippo and it tasted every bit as good as I'd imagined.  Apparently it is going to be a bit cooler tomorrow, which will be something of a relief.  Ideally, of course, it should then be a scorcher over the weekend, when I could enjoy it, but, inevitably, rain is forecast.  At least I won't have to water the garden, I suppose.