Tag Archives: hot

Day 196

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It was hot and stuffy in the shop today, though not as hot as I thought it would feel. I await the next few days with interest to see if we set a new record, as predicted. It will give us something new to complain about in terms of weather.

We don’t really handle heat very well in the UK. Or snow. Or rain. I would have thought that we would have had reports of water shortages by now but we still seem to have plenty of water left. It shows how average our weather is, that any extreme seems to cause us problems. having said that, I noticed a man watering his garden with a hose a few mornings ago.

I was annoyed that he was doing so, as it seemed a waste, considering that he only had a few scrubby plants in a very unimaginative garden. However, I was even more annoyed that he was watering so badly. If you are going to water you should use plenty, and he was merely sprinkling a few drops here and there. if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. And he wasn’t doing it well.

The current heatwave may well see us breaking the 40 degree barrier for the first time ever – our current record is 38.7 degrees. If you are reading this in Australia, that’s right, the UK is about to close down at a temperature that equates to “quite warm” in Australia.

The political climate continues unchanged, with Boris Johnson still classed as a villain. As the weather threatens to kill numbers of vulnerable people he missed an emergency meeting and hosted a party at Chequers. Considering that he did a fairly poor job as PM most of the time, I don’t see why people expect him to do a good one now he has stepped down.

That is a bit serious for me so I will go to bed now and wake refreshed, humorous, and ready to face another hot day.

I really struggled to find a header picture depicting “hot”.

 

 

Hot and tired

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Not much to say. I’m very tired after several nights where it’s been too hot to sleep. I simply cannot keep myself awake long enough to write anything. It’s very tempting just to pack it up and not bother posting, but he habit is strong and the lure of another blue sticker is addictive.

I’m sure that hot weather didn’t used to cause me any problem when I was younger.  A few years ago I found that winter was causing me problems, and now summer is too. That only leaves spring and autumn, and I’m fairly sure that autumn will become less pleasant as I become more arthritic. That’s going to leave me with a mere three months of enjoyment in a year.

I now have six sets of submissions out and am feeling virtuous, though writing poetry isn’t really the same thing as work.  I still have three more possible homes for more submissions but I may not be productive enough to manage them all. I have the day off tomorrow, and the car will be in the garage for its annual MOT test, so I am going nowhere. It’s very tempting just to plan for sitting in front of a fan all day.

Time to put a spurt on – it’s 23.48 and things are going slowly.

What else can I say about the day? It was hot, the shop was airless and I entered 27 medallions on our eBay site, though I did come close to falling asleep a couple of times.Several bad nights, lack of oxygen and a dull task – it’s definitely a recipe for trouble. I think that’s enough fro tonight. My general moan about the state of the world will have to wait a few days until I feel industrious enough to write it. That’s jhow tired I am, to tired to moan. It’s a good thing I don’t live anywhere that is really hot, as I’m sure you are queuing up to tell me, as i’m sure most of my readers are actually a lot hotter than the UK. It’s like snow – we are ahppy while it’s cold and damp, or moderately warm, but we just aren’t prepared for snow or heat. No snowploughs. No air conditioning.

23.57. Just made it.

 

 

Nightmare Saturday

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Things are not going well. I had a bad day on Thursday, aching in all my joints. Eventually I had to give in and give myself a good dose of painkillers before bed. Yes, including ibuprofen. It worked. I had a good night’s sleep, a complete run of five and a half hours without waking, and when I did wake I was pain free and felt years younger. Meanwhile my co-worker said he also felt undefinably ill that day. I put it down to something in the air. Then on Friday we found the boss, who had been doing paperwork and having a day off, on Thursday, had also felt ill on Thursday. On Friday he was still ill, and developed a harrowing dry cough, one of the classic covid symptoms. His wife made him take a lateral flow test on Thursday night and he was clear, but it was still a worry. I took a test on Friday night and was OK. The boss’s wife made him do a proper test (I forget the name) on Friday night and they sent it off.

As a result, with my co-worker away on Saturday and the boss being made to self-isolate by his mask-wearing wife, there was just me in today.

I had the door locked and did the eBay parcels. There were six of them, an advance on previous days. Then a customer arrived and I let him in. While he was in a family (grandparents and grandson) arrived. That took some time, but the lad is just starting out and needed some advice. I see advice for young collectors as an important thing so took my time over that.

By the time I had the shop to myself again more items had sold on eBay and several auctions had finished. I’d been told I could go at 1.00, but ended up going just after 3.00. It was still an early finish, but it’s surprising how  a day’s work can expand, particularly now that all the foreign parcels need customs labels – thanks to leaving the EU. It’s one of the hidden costs. We spend a couple of hours a week doing them, I suppose. Not a huge figure, but 2 hours a wee is 100 hours, which is two weeks. Somebody has to pay fro that two weeks. I don’t remember seeing that written on the side of a bus…

It was also hot and stuffy as we have no air-conditioning and can’t hav ethe doors open when there is just one of us in the shop.

Hopefully, all the covid stuff is just a groundless worry, but watch this space.