England, and from what I hear, Europe, is undergoing a heatwave.
Temperatures in the UK are around 30°C. Where I am it’s gonna hit 32°C in the next couple of hours.
To you Americans, you Australians, that’s nothing. It’s a mild day, we’re weak, whatever, I’ve heard it all, the thing is, WE AREN’T EQUIPPED TO DEAL WITH THIS.
The average temperature in the UK in July is 17°C. It is in the 30’s today. We simply are not used to it. We are used to rain and sleet and hail and wind, not heat. And our heat is a damp heat. A humid heat.
Because of all the sea around us we have an extremely humid climate if it gets warm. The air literally feels heavy right now. I am struggling to cool down because the humidity is fucking with my sweat, and as a trans man, the high amounts of water in the air, combined with my binder make it difficult to breathe, and I assume a lot of asthmatic people have a similar problem.
When temperatures in the UK are like this, people die. Don’t laugh about it. It is serious. It may not seem like much to you, it may not seem warm to you, but in a similar heatwave in 2013, 760 people died.
Our infrastructure is not built to cope with this. The house I live in, for instance, was built when the Thames still used to freeze over. It was built to be warm. The walls are thick, the windows are small, some rooms don’t even have windows that open, it was built with no though to air circulation, and this is one of the most common types of home in the UK. The UK government subsidises insulation. People fill every gap in their home with stuff that will keep the heat in. And nobody – literally nobody – has aircon. A lot of businesses don’t even have it. We have no use for it 99.9% of the time. Hell, I don’t even own a desk fan or even a hand held fan.
It is very different here to where you are. And we are used to and equipped for very different things. Instead of laughing, teach us how to stay cool. Instead of making jokes or quips, make info posts, and things that will help us.
Remember, this may be an average day to you, but to us it’s a heatwave. We cannot cope. And for some, particularly children and the elderly, it’s literally a matter of life and death.
Repeating this cause there’s another heatwave going on in Europe at the moment. This is reality for us.
Tag: uk heatwave
Finally below 80F! Even if it took until about 10:30 p.m.
(Inside the house is still a different matter, but I don’t even want to hunt down the thermometer to find out by how much.)
Not really looking forward to the rest of the week coming up. The forecast back home is (unusually) about the same, but that’s with air conditioning and things just generally set up better for it as standard summer weather. The constant humidity here also adds that special touch to any temperature extreme 😵
At least I think the dizziness and nausea weren’t quite as bad as yesterday, but we’ll see tomorrow. I’ve never done that well with heat, but the worsening thermoregulation BS the past few years really doesn’t help. Trying to sleep with no AC is the worst, as always, and I’m really not looking forward to trying that again. I woke up and guzzled some water earlier before going back to sleep, but still got up dehydrated enough that the muscles were really going haywire. Talk about some sensory overload. On the plus side: no weird freezing cold attacks for a couple of days so far! *wry smile*
Plan for tomorrow: a lot of iced tea, electrolytes, and some cold sesame-peanut noodles. I’m tempted to try cooking the noodles tonight and stashing them in the fridge. Worst case, if the texture seems weird? I get to cook more tomorrow evening. Or just get something delivered, to avoid dealing with boiling water when it’s the hottest in here already 🙄
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