Hot nights in Sydney

It’s almost 10 p.m. and the temperature in Sydney is 29.7 oC, which is about 86 oF – or more accurately no matter how you translate it, sweat drippingly hot. The ceiling fans are whirring round but it feels as if they are just shifting super heated air from one side of the room to the other. It is nights like this that I long for that non-environmental luxury, air conditioning. I also reflect on the fact that we at least live near the ocean and thus get a bit of a breeze. I would say I shudder to think how hot it must be in Sydney’s Western Suburbs but firstly shudder is a cold weather word and secondly, if I attempted to try and shake, shudder or indeed make any kind of vigorous movement I feel I would scatter damp like a Labrador emerging from the sea.

As I type I am listening to the BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour book adaptation which this week is M M Kaye’s ‘Far Pavilions’. I discovered M. M Kaye as a teenager and loved both ‘Far Pavilions’ and “Shadows of the Moon’ her two epic romances set in India both with a ‘Gone with the Wind ‘ type grandeur. Actually thinking about it the radio adaptation must go on for weeks as it is hardly a quick read. I cannot imagine how the women of the Raj coped with the heat in India, unsuitably dressed as they were in layers of petticoats and fabric. Just thinking of a pith helmet makes me feel faint and I’m not even standing in the sun in one.

Should also be counting my blessings I am not in Adelaide, Melbourne or Canberra all of which are even hotter than Sydney at present, let alone Far North Queensland where they are battening down the hatches in anticipation of a cyclone.