Heatwave

The weather is all over the place. We tend to have heat waves with cold, rainy weather in between. There was a heat wave I was in the Netherlands. It was cold and wet when I ran the Llanrug 5k, hot when I ran with Jacko and in Deganwy, cold and wet when I was marshalling the Tuesday race on Gyrn Wigau, et cetera. We are back to hot. And not just a bit!  The Met office has issued amber and red weather warnings, and they expect us to break the British record for the hottest June day ever recorded this week.

In the weekend, it wasn't very hot yet. On the Monday, I stayed at home and did cool things. Cool in the sense of not at high temperature, obviously. I kept a lot of curtains closed and (selected) windows open in order to keep the heat out. And I have been sleeping upstairs, behind the very thick walls of the old part of my house. Not in the extension, with its thin walls and south-facing windows.

My house in heatwave setting

On the Tuesday, I had a lot of meetings. That was a bit trying. In the morning I was in a meeting room that was too hot by everyone's standards, and in the afternoon I had all my meetings online in my office. These are all about academic integrity, and for privacy reasons, and in order not to be disturbed, I keep my door closed when I have them. That means my office doesn't ventilate. It gets unpleasantly stuffy.

On the Wednesday, I was back at meetings, but that day it was actually surprisingly cool in the morning. My office was quite bearable, and so were the rooms in which I had my meetings. This must have been a perk of North Wales, as in some of the rest of the country it must have been unbearable 

The Thursday would be the worst, with initially temperatures forecast of 35°. It was later adjusted to 33°. It really was super hot. In England, the record of the day before was easily broken already.

The Friday should be the last they where it was really too much. On the Saturday things should be ok again. I came through locate. The temperature in my living room went up to 25°, which is a lot more modest than what some other people were experiencing. Given that it is not term time, I can work from home if I want. I have double glazing, and a north facing office. I also have a standing fan. My office on campus is not that suitable and/or adaptable.

I didn't bike for the entire week. On Tuesday that wasn't a choice; I just suddenly thought at 8:45 that I had a meeting at 9. That was not true; that meeting was on Wednesday. But as I believed it was true I jumped into my car and went to campus. On Wednesday I would go to Bethel straight after work. On Thursday I worked from home. On Friday again I had to go places straight from campus. But anyway I was glad to not spend an additional 80 minutes or so in the unforgiving heat. And having got sunburnt on Sunday, I was quite happy to not expose my fragile skin to the sun, not even through clothes.

I also barely ran. I only did a race on Wednesday (blog post to come). My skin was not grateful. But I did enjoy it. I skipped the track for reasons of heat and sunburn, and I would have skipped the Thursday Hill run anyway for similar reasons, but I was also otherwise engaged. Not much exercise for me this week.

We will have to be ready for more of this! I suppose one thing I should change is be more careful and not get sunburnt. I might invest in a fan for my office. And I might try to think of something that is more efficient in keeping the heat out of my conservatory than the improvised curtain I have now. It is a conservatory, though, so although I am sure gains can be made, keeping it anywhere near bearable wouldn't be easy.

I'm sure there will be more times like these even this summer. I'll be OK! But I can't say I'm enjoying it…