Mad Dogs and Englishmen.

On waking at 4.30am, I was confused; my surroundings weren't familiar and why was a light aircraft landing near my head? Was I back in 'Nam? No... I was in our living room, on the sofa. Had Anna, my wife, and I had a drunken argument and I had been forced to relocate to the sofa, to think about what I'd done? No, I noticed her on the other sofa. 

Then the fog cleared and I remembered; our bedroom was so hot last night, we had both decamped downstairs. I peeled myself from the sofa and turned the fan, that was blowing churned up warm air into my face, off.

It had been 41 degrees yesterday, 41 the day before yesterday, it was going to be 41 today and tomorrow... then, thankfully, it would drop to a balmy 39...and it was only June!

I love a sunny day as much as the next fella, but I didn't sign up for this. Jeez. Our bedroom was like an oven, and I was the sausage roll, oozing fatty fluids as I basted in my own juices. I took a sip of tepid water to try and lube the tubes.

All my lovely plants which I had been nurturing over the last few months: watering, potting up, showering love upon, have shrivelled to crispy flakes. My courgettes look like deflated party balloons and the tomatoes turned black due to irregular watering...how can you keep it regular when it's 41 degrees for a week! Next year I will grow only cacti and tumbleweed. I'm like Noah in reverse; I scour the weather forecast, praying for a flood.

The poor fish are trying to survive in an ever decreasing green puddle. The chickens sit in a patch of shade with wings sticking out and panting...I didn't know chickens pant. Anna gave them a paddling pool, but they don't seem to be taking advantage. Sadly, since time of writing, one of the poor chooks has expired – RIP chicken number 5.

We've even closed our shutters, which we never do, in a desperate attempt to knock it down a degree or two. So, now it's not only swelteringly hot, but dark too...I feel like a mushroom.

And don't get me started on the flies. I love all God's creatures, but I feel no remorse in splatting a fly with my trusty swat; it's the only way. My little body wracked with bites the size of marbles. Don't scratch, don't scratch...how can you not? Citronella candles?...give me a break. We recently purchased a couple of those helicopter things, they don't work unless you strap them to the top of your head.

Smearing every protruding part of my body with factor 50. It's alright for you ladies with your silky smooth skin, but us fellas, with our bodily hair; ooh the things we men have to put up with!

I've never been a huge fan of the swimming pool we inherited, when we bought the house. The total amount of money we've shelled out on covers, robots (that scoot around the bottom sucking up the flotsam and jetsam), the electricity (Anna doesn't disclose our electricity bill, incase I explode), I dread to think. I have to listen to Anna moaning about the suntan lotion scum line around the edge, the robot missing a bit, the snake in the pump chamber, the bugs and woodland creatures committing hara kiri and affecting the water quality (which Anna likes to be on a par with the waters of Evian)... our old school swimming pool was a urine-filled hole in the ground, full of worms, supurrating plasters and the odd floater, but it was good enough for us. 

But, now, I will not hear a word against it. It has been a lifesaver in this heat wave. I run across the boiling hot paving slabs, ooh ah ooh ah, and melt into the cooling arms of the water and float, with the aid of my styrofoam noodle, like a whale coming up for air, occasionally gliding to the side of the pool for a mouthful of warm beer. 

Oh, listen to me banging on, like a right old moaning Minnie. You, dear reader, didn't pick up your copy of 'The DSM' to hear me venting my spleen about meteorological matters. Allow me one last grumble, or should that be crumble. I harvested our rhubarb, before it withered, Anna disappeared into the kitchen with it, I thought to freeze for the winter, but oh no. We were sat in 41 degrees heat on the terrace eating rhubarb crumble...I thought nuclear fission was about to take place in my stomach.