"Excuse me but it is summer here"

I want to tell them as they droop past me while taking their dogs on the obligatory "walk". The walk is not much more than a grumbling stroll around the block, done because they feel guilty about not doing something.

Yes, it was hot yesterday. The thermometer we keep on the wall at the back door said, "41.6C" at one point. Yes, it is sensible to stay indoors and do as little as possible in such temperatures. If you are lucky enough not to have to go to work then it is possible to avoid the worst times for going out even if you feel you must walk the dog.

But it seems that even a single day of such heat is now a "crisis" brought on by "climate change". We were "sweltering". There were other such words used too. I won't bother to repeat them. "Rough sleepers" were given "shelter" in the city bus station and more.

I actually loathe the heat. I would be happy to avoid summer altogether. It is beyond my understanding that my cousin chooses to spend summer here and then summer in London. London winters can be hard, perhaps particularly hard in a power and price upsurge. I admit I prefer spring and autumn temperatures. But heat? No.

At the same time one day of such heat is nothing to what we occasionally have - days of temperatures over 35'C, even over 40'C. Those are days and nights when it seems too hot to sleep and tempers grow short. One day of heat is not a week of such heat or even, on occasion, ten days or more. 

When we lived in a tiny rural community in the far west of the state we often had days at this temperature. There was no air conditioning. We could not even have a fan because that required power and the 32v supply had to be used for essentials. Fans were not essential. We did have a fridge. The ice compartment in that was tiny compared with what people have now. A drink of water meant crossing the school yard to the precious supply of rainwater in the big tank because the tap water was too brackish and too hot to put your hands under the water flowing from it. 

Yesterday was unpleasant and we will have more days like it over the next weeks of summer and even into autumn. I won't like it and neither will others but was yesterday really such a heat "crisis"? Was the temperature really all about "climate change"?  It was actually quite a normal day in a Downunder summer.