Had a few days away from the computer, entertaining some young relatives from abroad. On Thursday we travelled up to Bristol for the annual International Balloon Fiesta with scores of hot air balloons taking to the skies and lighting up and dancing to music in the dark. It was a scorching hot day and thousands of people did that typical thing when Brits get a bit of sunshine; strip off and expose white, alabaster flesh to the burning midday sun, quickly turning marbled red and pink, like acres of large lobsters in the skimpiest imaginable shorts. Not me – I have a HUGE hat and sunglasses and I stay resolutely covered up – I don’t like to have skin like pork crackling 🙂
And the other thing we Brits do in a heatwave? We find the tea bar and sit in the searing heat sipping boiling hot tea. I was always brought up to drink the hottest possible tea when the weather resembles the inside of a volcano. I don’t know why. But that’s what we do.
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Oh yes, a nice hot cup of tea on a scorching day… can’t beat it! No crushed ice for me 😉
I love these sketches – full of a sense of place.
Celia
Thank you – now, iced tea would be sensible.
I think the hot tea on a broiling day idea came from India…I also believe the “science” behind it was that something hot (or spicy) makes you perspire more, thus cooling you off. Or, it could all simply be total rubbish 🙂
There must be something in it because we keep doint it. Certainly makes you feel better 🙂
Great sketches, as usual–
I am a very pale Swede. Kind of a vampirish blue tinge to my skin–stayed out of the sun since my early 20’s. Un-wrinkly now!
Me too – you can see my blue veins zigzagging across my skin. I can’t stand the heat, but after three months of torrential rain I’m not complaining 🙂
My gran always said it helps sweat out the heat by making your belly hotter. She also said her nextdoor neighbour had a witch sat on her roof once as punishment for not buying pegs off her.So probaly true…
haha of course 🙂