Torrid temperatures take their toll

“Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer.”

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I love a good sci-fi film, a nail-biting apocalyptic flick or an edge-of-your-seat creature-feature.

Hubby and I often make up storylines – one such tale featured a family of hikers on the run from a scourge of stealthy blood-sucking giant mosquitos, the result of nuclear testing gone wrong.

I fleetingly imagined getting a call from Steven Spielberg about this one.

My latest apocalyptic film idea is a little too close to reality: The film is set in summer. Opening titles roll with clips of lovely sunny weather, BBQs, children playing in park fountains, sprinklers on lawns, adults chinking glasses of Pimms, lovers cycling along the Thames and the sound of children’s laughter. But it never ends. The grass dies. The shops run out of water. The rain never comes. The. Laughter. STOPS.

Remember the shocking film, Alive (1993), about the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes and without food or water, they were forced to …

I say no more.

Yesterday the Met Office announced that the higher than normal temperatures we have been experiencing in the UK for nearly 3 months are set to continue into October.

Our lovely green spaces are no longer green.

Thirsty trees in the park.

Leaves on trees drooping with lack of rain.

Stagnant pond water and a lonely statue covered in weeds.

Flower beds in Bishops Park

Tanners out in the park.

Pot plant in our neighbour’s front garden.

Fear of fires in London’s parks

A not so typical London window basket.

London is a little scary at the moment.

SMALL PRINT:
P.s. Getting a call from Steven Spielberg about one of my story ideas is, I’m afraid, a not uncommon fantasy of mine.
P.p.s. People say to me, but you grew up in South Africa, you should be used to the weather. Nope. Give me 35deg C in South Africa any day rather than this – at my home on the coast (designed for summer with glass doors and tiled floors), a typical evening breeze and a few inches of rain over night. We long for decent summers in London, but we are not equipped for this!
P.p.p.s. We welcome in some cooler temps from tomorrow, but not much talk of rain yet. We actually had about 5 steaming drops of rain on the terrace this afternoon, but they evaporated quickly and added to the humidity.
P.p.p.p.s. I think it may be time for a weekend break in the countryside.
P.p.p.p.p.s. I so love a creature-feature that I did my university thesis on Aliens (1986) and Jaws
P.p.p.p.p.p.s. Hubby and I invented the mutant-mozzie story while walking through a muggy, mozzie-filled forrest on the Pilgrim Walk in Norway.(1975).