Weather Changes
I don’t much like change, even if it’s a positive one. I like the familiarity of routine and some sameness. I’m not an old fart, or I don’t think I am, but alarming changes in things that are significant and out of my control give me cause for concern and a wistfulness for what’s leaving.
The weather is changing around the world. I’m using the words ‘weather changes’ as the other option Climate Change, can be contentious. It’s a bit like saying ‘Winter Festival’ instead of Christmas.
The recent heatwave followed by serious rain and gale force winds is confusing the wildlife and the people.
why wouldn’t you want all that delicious heat?
During the really hot days of 30c; I measured it on an ancient but effective Bakelite thermometer belonging to my husband’s grandmother: it was saying over 30c outdoors. I withdrew into my house and into myself as the blasting heat solarised on from 7 am. It felt weird and uncanny. When I used to visit old friends in Toulouse in the summer and they would close all the windows and shutters in the day I used to think ‘how ridiculous, why wouldn’t you want all that delicious heat?’ Now I am like them. I pull the curtains in the bedroom and the sitting room to keep the room cool. I am very lucky to live in an older house where the rooms stay relatively cool. Unlike my niece in London in the heatwave last year she had to hang wet sheets across her flat windows to try and cool the rooms.
In Paris old buildings covered in the famous zinc roofs have become ovens. So hot you could cook on them. The hottest temperature recorded was 80c. I visited Death Valley by car some years ago and stupidly thought what’s all the fuss about so I got out of the car, Wowee it was like being roasted in a rotisserie oven, 52c. Nature won and I got back into the car pronto.
I know for some the heat is welcomed and embraced, beach life beckons, skins tan, BBQ’s get cooked and children learn to swim.
I find the heat unnerving the relentlessness of it. I worry for the birds and the trees. During the recent heatwave, and now there is another one. I had to go to Dartington Aller Park for an appointment in the heat of the sun, I contemplated our future looking up into the massive tree canopies on the edge of the park. The trees look wilty in this unbelievable blasting heat. Not a dog walker in sight and it was only 10 am. My dog has got a thick black curly coat and we’re regularly hosing him which luckily he adores. I worry for the dogs being led around town, panting and looking a bit fed up.
Photo by Ramon Karolan: https://www.pexels.com/photo/sunset-silhouette-over-varna-buildings-33691033/But what about the future of the climate? What’s going to happen? The trees are beginning to look stressed. Our crab apple has got slightly brown leaves and it is working hard. They are all working hard to adapt to the changes. People who work outdoors are under new pressures. Over 100 million working hours have been lost to heat stress, there is a higher risk of sun damage and loss of productivity due to heat stress.
I’m definitely not built for this heat. I prefer it cooler. I know, but I’m Irish. We don’t look good in the boiling sun! I don’t tan. I just get more freckles!
The birds are working hard too. I can hear them really early in the morning getting set up for the hot day to come. Recent research shows heatwaves cause severe stress in birds. They do suffer. I keep putting out bowls of water but they evaporate so I’m building little partitions around the bowls of water. I’m not sure what the birds think about that!
The trees look stressed
Undressed
Beach boy
Sand girl
Babes in the woods no more
What are we to do?
Twit twoo?