Yesterday’s post about the heatwave turned into a post about gardening. So here’s what I was going to post yesterday.
Temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s (Centigrade) have most people running air conditioners pretty much non stop. We all say we don’t know what we’d do without the air conditioner.
But the house I grew up in didn’t have one until I was in my teenage years, and we managed to survive without melting or bursting into flames. We did it all again the year the air conditioner broke down a day before the heatwave started and couldn’t be fixed for three months.
So here’s what we used to do every summer:
- go to the beach or a public swimming pool. Swimming is a great way to stay cool. Remember to avoid getting sunburn (YouTube video)
- go to the Linear Park along the Torrens River. The river valley is partly sheltered from the sun, and having water in it helps cool it down. We’d also play in shallower parts of the river, even though it was more polluted than it is now.
- go to the movies, shopping centers, or other air conditioned places. Movies and shopping centres are also a source of entertainment.
- have long, cold baths.
- lots of cold drinks. Every summer the fridge was full of jugs of water and various soft drinks. These days my fridge usually contains some beer, white wine and home made iced coffee (see recipe below).
- the house has a wine cellar, we’d spend time down there reading books.
- fans, fans, fans. Ceiling fans, pedestal fans, hand held fans. Anything that gets the air moving helps evaporate sweat, which cools you down.
- wear damp clothing or wrap a wet towel around yourself.
- in the evening when it gets a bit cooler, open windows and doors and let the relatively colder air remove some of the heat from the house.
There were probably other things we did as well, although that’s all I can think of at the moment. These days you’d probably add “drive around in an air conditioned car” to the list if you had no air conditioning at home.
And here’s that iced coffee recipe:
- Put coffee grounds in cold water in the fridge. Cold brewed coffee is sweeter than that brewed with hot water, and I prefer it for iced coffee.
- At least 12 hours later, filter the coffee. I use a plunger pot which makes this part really easy. I tried pouring it through filter paper, it did the job but was a bit tricky.
- Mix the resulting coffee with milk. I use a 1:1 ratio, of course you can do it however you like. You might even like it without milk.
- Add ice, cream, ice cream, etc. to taste. Usually I just throw in a couple of ice cubes to keep it cold.
And there you have it – ways to beat the heat if you don’t have air conditioning.
