heat waves

Monday Mumblings

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 19 Comments

Happy Birthday – according to Facebook it is your birthday today, or at least lots of people seem to be having birthdays so it could be yours. I have already sent birthday greetings to three people, one an old school friend, two quite new Facebook friends who I have never met in real life.

At least twice I have received a birthday message from someone who wrote ‘Facebook keeps telling me to wish you a happy birthday so I suppose I had better.’  This led me to ponder what comments we might put on the Facebook birthday line…

‘I don’t know who the hell you are, but Happy Birthday.’

‘I have absolutely no recollection of becoming your Facebook friend, but what the heck, happy birthday and have a wonderful day and year and life….’

‘If you keep stalking me on Facebook I shall be contacting my solicitor.’

There is still hope for our government and the country itself as long as citizens like Count Binface are putting themselves forward as candidates for parliament.

Do you ever get that déjà vu feeling when watching the news? I’m sure most of us do. When hearing a holiday maker in Greece recounting her escape experience from the terrible fires it sounded very familiar. After a boat trip they were landed on a beach to make their way back to the hotel and wait for information to see if they needed to be evacuated, but as the boat left they looked up to see people fleeing from the hotel as it was engulfed in flames. The sea was the only means of escape. Hmm, that’s the story I wrote two years ago…

Sunday Short Story – 1200 – Sunshine Break

Do you ever get the wrong image when listening to the news on the radio…

‘Flights are still landing on roads’ .. what? OH  Rhodes!

Handy hints for prospective holiday makers on the news

‘Contact your holiday company to check if you will still be able go ahead with your holiday plans to the wild fire area. Some holiday companies are sending empty flights to evacuate holiday makers…’

How was your day today. Have you any holiday plans?

Don’t Mention The Weather

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 26 Comments

We were on a college summer camp on Rottnest Island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, well only 18 kilometres from Fremantle, Western Australia, but one of the girls had to be airlifted off by helicopter as she had heatstroke. Happy days – when we emigrated to Australia in 1964 nobody worried about skin cancer or staying hydrated. Fortunately my parents were aware the sun was hot. Dad was out in Egypt after WW2 before he was demobbed and told of ’idiots’ being stretchered out with third degree burns after sun bathing. Fortunately my parents avoided the beach after being taken to Scarborough Beach by our sponsors on our first day in Australia. Huge waves and hot sand did not appeal and we went to pleasant shady spots by the River Swan.

My novel Quarter Acre Block was inspired by our first year in Australia.

Unfortunately school outings were gloriously free of sun hats and sun lotion and I recall an early outing when we spent the whole day on the beach and next day my nose peeled and bled! Outings with youth groups on hot days were often followed by me feeling sick the next day; setting off without any money and probably a picnic with a plastic bottle of cordial, I obviously didn’t drink enough. At school we did have plenty of water fountains, I didn’t spend my whole time dehydrated, but my sister recalls that if you were thirsty when you were out you stayed thirsty. I’m sure other people were buying bottles of coke and cool drinks of lurid colour, but we were not.

Sun and shade in Western Australia.

Our current heatwave has brought endless dire warnings of the dangers of going out – or staying inside homes not designed to cope with hot weather. Modern parents never let their children out without a bottle of water, but they should not panic – if Prince George could sit in the heat of Wimbledon dressed in a jacket and tie there is no need to pamper children.


How is the weather where you are?

Beach Hut Tales

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 29 Comments
We are having a heatwave, bad for my garden, but perfect for being in the sea, except first you have to get to the beach or your beach hut…

Yesterday after writers’ group I decided to get on a bus and get off at Woodland Walk, which as its name suggests is a cool and pleasant walk from a busy road to the cliff top. As soon as I left the shade of the trees the heat hit me. I crunched across our toasted cliff top to approach my beach hut from the other direction to my usual walk from home.

The stone building is not a castle, but the toilet block by our beach huts.
The descent down the ravine, more fun going down than up.

The hot weather reminded me of last year when my daughter-in-law sent a clip of a beach hut on fire. I quickly ascertained it wasn’t our strip. Everyone was safe, but I imagine there wasn’t much left of the beach hut or its neighbours! Gas rings, flapping curtains and wooden huts are a recipe for disaster perhaps. In the local paper the owner was quoted ’my nephew came to fetch me and said Aunty I think the beach hut is on fire… ’ hmm, my suspicious mind wondered what the boy might have been up to..

I fully expect that one day calamity will strike my hut, either one of the regular cliff falls or a cliff fire in scorching weather. But other dramas also occur. I am now a member of that group ’widows who sit in beach huts.’ There are three of us in my little strip and it is only recently I heard the stories of the other two ladies, widowed a good while. We were all chatting when the most senior said to the other ’I don’t think you were here back then when my husband died.’

‘Oh yes I was,’ she replied ’I remember doing CPR on him on the beach hut floor!’