It’s been sweltering recently, and with predicted global warming, the trend is for colder, wetter winters and drier, hotter summers.  That said, I wonder if the UK will go the route of central air conditioning.[ad#ad-1]

After weeks of attempting to rectify the car problems, the mechanic thinks the head gasket has gone.  Luckily, he passed us on the road, shortly after he had fitted in a new hose pipe for the coolant.  We were on our way to the gym.  It was lucky for us that my daughter had insisted on going to the gym that day (she refuses to go sometimes).  Otherwise, we might have been heading a different direction with disastrous results.  We had to turn around and made other arrangements for the girls to attend their afternoon activities with Stagecoach.  We took a couple buses to town.

As we waited for the kids to finish, my husband and I lunched under a tree in the church cemetery.  Afterwards, we decided to go to the library, expecting it to be cooler.  Whew!  It was sweltering in there.  We decided to go back outdoors and spent the rest of the afternoon under a tree at the school.

I couldn’t understand why there wasn’t air conditioning in the library.  And, if there is, why wasn’t it on?  I can’t believe that anyone could possibly work in such conditions.  I know many public buildings have air conditioning, so why not the library?

My husband then commented that school examination halls were like that.  He recalled taking exams in hot, stuffy halls.  What were they thinking?  In the US, examination halls tend to be on the cool side.  We’re always reminded to take a sweater, just in case.  The heat makes people sluggish and it’s well documented that people perform worse on exams in the heat.[ad#ad-1]

Well, we’re renting a car right now and it has a functioning air conditioner.  What a difference in this heat.  Our car didn’t have air conditioning and I was constantly sweating.  And when the sun is beating down on you through the windshield, it burns.

And, as I’ve complained before, we have screenless windows, so if we must open the windows to air out the house, we have to accept the herd of insects that we openly invite inside.

This weekend was the perfect example of the summertime British festivities. [ad#ad-1]

We were aware of one fayre in our general area, but would have been unable to make it due to other commitments.  Namely, Stagecoach.  But, when we arrived at the school for Stagecoach, the kids refused to go.  The older one was tired after her morning gymnastics practice and had a meet the next day.  The younger was really just feeling lazy and used her stomach as an excuse again. 

However, she had homework for the mid-term break, so we decided to stay in the town and get the homework done – it required mapping out one of the main streets.  Afterwards, they wanted ice cream.  We thought we’d stop for ice cream and they might change their minds about Stagecoach, since we were an hour early.  However, on our way to get ice cream, we drove through Lindfield, a small village surrounding Haywards Heath.  Right there in the center, was a fayre.  And a very proper and traditional British fayre it was.  Rides, games, stalls, tombola, raffles, fancy dress competition, and food.  Things missing were shows, races and physical competitions.

Needless to say, they wanted to stop for that.  In the midst of having fun in the fun house and spending money on games, they forgot about their ice cream.  That is, until we had to leave when we ran out of money.  They still refused Stagecoach, but they wanted their ice cream.

Next day, we had the gymnastics competition in Horsham.  Our daughter competed in the morning session (8:30-12:00), but she wanted to stay for the afternoon session to watch other teammates.  In the middle of it, she was tired and wanted to go outside to play.  I stayed to keep our seats, while my husband took the girls out for a short spell.  It was unbelievably hot and the younger one came in after a while saying she didn’t feel well because of the heat. 
However, there was a fun-fair right there in the park where the gym was.  I believe it was a charity event.  The kids wanted to stay after the competition to enjoy the fair, but we were exhausted, especially since we had only been snacking all day.  We needed real food and were not about to pay a lot of money on junk at the fair.

But this weekend showed us that we were entering the season of fun.  On the way to the gym, we saw signs for a horse show and another for a dog show.  All of this, happening in one weekend.  I hope we survive this summer without going bankrupt or dealing with too many tantrums.

Having two bank holidays in May makes this month go by really fast.  I can’t believe it’s half-term already, and the kids had only been in school for 5 weeks this time.  Unfortunately, it will mean that the other half is much longer.  I’m unsure when school actually lets out this year.  If it’s as my husband suspects (July 24th), that will mean 8 weeks after the half-term.  I suspect it may be 1-2 weeks earlier, because they will be doing their Stagecoach performances on July 11th, and the school’s drama club will be presenting theirs the week of July 6th.  Anyhow, having two bank holidays also means that sometimes you can’t get things done in as timely a manner as you’d like, because businesses are closed (i.e., banks, post offices).[ad#ad-1]

On the other hand, it does mean lots of family fun events.  There will be two nearby fetes this Monday and I’d love to see them both, just to get a feel for them.  But, unfortunately, you might not get a very good feel for either if you don’t experience everything – and that takes time.  Ah, decisions, decisions.  It’s too bad that they’re both at the same time and they only last 3-4 hours.   Then, of course, we don’t even know if our daughter has gymnastics practice that day or if they’ll close for the day like last time.  Just as long as they don’t change the time because it is half-term – I wouldn’t want her to miss out on the fun.