Stay Cool

I’ll let you into a little secret, just because it has stopped raining and the sun is shining fit to flay the skin from your arms; doesn't mean you have to sit out in it. It is actually far more civilised to sit in the shade. Of course, you may well enjoy the sensation of sitting in the full glare of the sun and grilling yourself like a sardine on a barbecue but is it that good for you? Yes, there is the issue of vitamin D, but there is also the issue of malignant melanoma. Anyhoo, here are some tips for cooling down, if you want them.

1. Run your wrists under a cold tap or immerse them in a bowl of cold water.
2. Invest in a great, big fan and try freezing some bottles of water and suspending them from the fan. (Poor woman’s air conditioning - it is meant to dispense cool air around the room, tried this a couple of years ago with variable success.)
3. Persuade your boss to let you have a water pistol fight at work.
4. Eat loads of ice-cream. I wrote a blog post about the pros and cons of summer, last year and ice-cream came at the top of my list of ‘pros’.http://msmuddles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/taking-heat.html
5. Change your wallpaper and screensavers to pictures of snowy scenes and watch lots of Scandi crime dramas - it always looks freezing in The Bridge.
   www.publicdomainpictures.net
6. Stay well hydrated - lots of water and watery food - cucumber, melon and the like.
7. Recreate the effect of sitting at the sea’s edge, with the waves gently lapping at your feet by placing your feet in a washing-up bowl of cold water and swilling them around every now and again.
8. Consider moving to Stornoway (in the Scottish Highlands): On the UK weather map, whenever the rest of Britain is experiencing a full-on heatwave, Stornoway usually seems to be at least 10 degrees cooler than, say, London. I’ve just checked - the temperature in West London is currently peaking at a lacerating 30oC, Stornway 16oC!
9. Do as little as possible - you now have the perfect excuse, my friend!
10. Enjoy it while it lasts: go to an open air pool (some of them are open relatively late so you could go after work), head for the beach, go and have a picnic somewhere there’s lots of shade, cook every vestige of flavour out of that poor, tortured piece of beast, go and have cocktails/an ice cold beer/an iced coffee...