It's official - the UK is in the grips of a heatwave. The temperature hit 35 C yesterday and it's expected to rise throughout the week. Being the UK, there is naked flesh on view everywhere you care to look. The Aussie response to this sort of weather is to smother yourself in Factor 50, don a big hat and find somewhere airconditioned to drink G&Ts. The British response to searing heat is the removal of clothes and the assumption of favourite places on favourite beaches, mostly with lager in hand. I spent Saturday afternoon playing with the City of Swansea Concert Band at the Tircoed Village Fete. I was saddened but not shocked to see pasty white parents parading their pasty white babies around in the sun wearing nowt but a nappy. As the day progressed, they could be heard bitching about how hot they were and how sunburned they were. No sunscreen on them or their kids. It's no wonder at all that skin cancer rates are going through the roof in the UK. I grew up hearing the very catchy ditty, "Slip, Slop, Slap. Slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen and slap on a hat!"

On Sunday afternoon, I liberally applied high-factor sunscreen and went to Brandy Cove on the Gower Peninsula with a group of mates. I hadn't planned on going in the water, as I'm not a big fan of swimming in the sea, but it was so hot and the water looked So Inviting I couldn't stay away. At first I waded in up to my ankles. Then I was in up to my knees. Once the hems of my cropped trousers were wet, I gave in and got wet up to my belly. We threw a Vortex ball around for a while and the boys amused themselves by removing Leon's shorts, then his boxers. Leon knows he can never win once Dai, Princess and Tom get together.

Monday night is reserved for band practice. I'm chuffed to bits - we're going to play that classic Muppets tune, "Mahna Mahna".

New food fetish of the week: strawberries and cherries, dipped in Super Cook Easi Ice choc-fudge  icing (about 5g of fat and 120 calories per tablespoon). Get in two of your daily fruit serves and the wonderful stickyness of chocolate in one hit. Mum, you'd be proud of my portion control. I put a tablespoon of delicious gloop into a tiny ramekin and dip away without guilt. It's marginally better for me than the alternative, which was an entire 500ml tub of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia icecream.*

Is anyone else watching Big Brother? Spiral has just demonstrated just how little control he has over his moods. If anyone needs anger management classes, it's him. He's allegedly been cautioned already about sexually harassing Aisleyne after she spurned his sleazy advances. He's a dangerous man to piss off, methinks.

Am now going to have a cold shower in a vain attempt to cool down. Wish me luck.

 

*Am saving that for Friday night!  

I'm so with you with your views on British people and the sun and I'm british!! People who don't cover their kids up are up there with smoking mothers in my list of people who make my blood boil. I am the school of 'plaster the sun cream on children, put their hats on, sit them in the shade then forget about myself'.
Also its actually not THAT hot!! We've just got back from a week in France where it was much hotter and they were coping with life, get back here and the BBC, local papers etc, would lead you to beleive that the world is ending. God help us!!
ranting Nic
xx