4 July 2009

Heat

Path, Dover
White Cliffs, Dover

It has been about 30 degrees for the past two weeks. In the two and a half years I've lived here it has never been so hot. There is of course no air conditioning at work. All the teachers have been wearing shorts. The kids have turned into bedraggled creatures with bright pink patches on their cheeks and sweat dampened hair. The dinner ladies bring them inside early at lunch time, into the classrooms with all the lights turned off to feed them iced water and let them cool down.

This week there was a "weather warning" from the government to tell everyone how to deal with the heat. We were not to do PE outside. (The PE teacher took the kids out and they were only allowed to run in the shade of a building). Actually what you don't know is that there is no grass for our kids to run on in the playground - it is entirely made of bitumen. Which is hotter than grass I expect. We were not to have any electrical equipment turned on. No lights. No computers.

It takes me forty five minutes to walk home rather than thirty, my feet drag and shuffle and sometimes I'm eating icecream. It is wonderful, apart from all the sweat. Steamy and thundery and wonderful. All this heat and only three weeks left in London.

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