Canned air conditioning

So today is bloody hot, one of those days where you sweat when sitting and doing nothing.  I don’t have a thermometer but I have to guess its about 200 degrees out with no sign of a breeze.  In the past I really haven’t been that bothered by the lack of air conditioning but today I would give my (sweaty) left arm for a 5 minute stint in a very cold room.

I do however have some relief in the form of an instant cooling body spray called Magicool (yes, I know, brilliantly stupid name). I bought it last year for some unknown reason as it wasn’t that hot but I remember it was on sale and it is kind of like a gadget so I liked it.  I actually forgot I had it until I saw the hubby trying to cool off by spraying himself with the canned air you clean your computer keyboard with.

My favourite bit is their absolutely horrendous, low budget, badly dubbed commercial…I think though because it was so bad that is why I remembered it and eventually bought it….today, I am happy I did. It’s cheaper than air conditioning and seems to do the job….however I fear I might go through the entire can today, should be okay though as they are calling for rain tomorrow.

Click here to see the horrible amazing advert

Tropic of London

Enjoying a bit of a heat wave in London this week (helping add to my unemployment tan) with the temperature today going up to 32, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The one surprising thing is the lack of air conditioning here. Neither of the offices I have worked at nor our flat has the added luxury and more surprisingly,  quite a few retail stores don’t either….including the post office.  I stood in line this morning for 15 minutes behind a man who was sweating so much the brim of his baseball cap was dripping sweat leaving a sweaty trail of water through the Disney land-esque zig zagging line….it is a bit of a health hazard if you ask me.  Surprisingly I am surviving (with three fans on in our room at night) and actually don’t mind that every shop or office doesn’t feel like a walk in freezer.

This has nothing to do with anything, but ever wondered what you could do with a bunch of sun glasses and an oven cooker?  Yeah well there is an empty office building around the corner from my flat which came up with an idea as to what to do with them… (honestly it creeps me out as I am pretty sure we had centipedes that big in our basement growing up).

Picnic in the park

Another beautiful day in London so I put the job search on hold for one more day and met a friend in Green Park for lunch. While there I couldn’t help but snap a picture of this guy taking a quick nap. I assure you he isn’t dead, he did eventually get up and go back to work. I, on the other hand didn’t and stayed in the park most of the afternoon reading in the sun from which I am now sporting a hot set of sunburned knees (I will spare you the photos of that).

It’s big and holds water

We are in our fourth day of consecutive sunny hot weather and I love it. It seems that, for the most part, Londoners expect crap weather here so when it is beautiful, everyone seems pleasantly surprised and heads to the nearest park to strip down to their bathing suits ignoring the fact there is no water around. There are queues for the ice cream trucks and the smell of charcoal BBQ’s in the air. I have to say (while sitting on my balcony baking in the sun) its not a bad week to be out of the workforce.

In my attempt to find fun cheap things to do when I am not shopping my CV around, a  friend suggested I head to my local lido (pronounced Lie – dough….not Lee-DO as I thought) – not surprisingly I pulled my foreigner confused face and asked him to explain.

Turns out a lido is an large outdoor pool that you can swim in or lie around  – from what I can tell they have a bit of a beachy feel to them.  Apparently south London has one of the biggest lidos in Europe and in their heydays of the 1930’s there were 169 built across the UK to encourage people to get active.

As enticing as a public pool sounds, I am more comfortable on top of the water in a big floaty chair  and a drink versus in it, and I am not sure that the other swimmers would appreciate that.  For now, my balcony with my wireless internet and easy access to the fridge is a pretty good option.

Here is today’s forecast for those of you whom think London is always cold and rainy.

Spring…

Nothing like some spring flowers to brighten my walk to Waitrose to get lunch….

City of Ontario…

So we survived the snow but now the city of London is getting ridiculed for how they handled it. Frankly, I think they should get over it…so what people couldn’t get in to work for 1 day…for the love of god it only happens every 20 years give everyone a day off!
Anyway I did happen to love this though in the Metro paper today as apparently they are urging the Mayor of London  to have to hold meetings with the mayors of other cities who are used to dealing with snow….

I am interested to see how they get on calling the mayor of the CITY of Ontario.

PS for those of you who don’t get it, Ontario is a Province not a City…a Province is like a State but the Canadian version (and we only have 10 not 50 like the US) .

Okay back to non snow related stuff tomorrow….

London snow update

The snow continues and so does the news coverage criticizing how poorly London handles snow. To be fair, why would a city that only gets snow every 18 years know how to deal with snow!? Buying snow plows would be an irresponsible waste of government money.  Truthfully, enough snow has fallen that even in Canada the trains would be screwed up and people would be advised to be cautious on the road.

I have enjoyed the news coverage of said catastrophe but the quote of the day goes to this dude…

What do you mean by ’somewhere like Canada’….is it really that hard to believe that we can figure out how to cope with snow? You are right, we just started walking upright a few years ago, I can see why it is hard to believe.

I find it hard to believe that the Brits think that wellies or uggs are good snow footwear….wellies are waterproof but freezing cold to wear and when you get the sole cold it is like wearing skates.  Uggs were developed in a country that has never seen snow so aren’t the least bit waterproof, you may as well go in your socks…and on my final point…why are people out with umbrellas…it is snow, not rain….done now

Oh, the chaos

So we are in the middle of the biggest snow storm London has seen in 18 years and it is absolutely beautiful!  Chaos of cancelled buses, tubes and schools aside, the snow is the nice sticky stuff that clings to trees and buildings and is great for snowball fights.  I couldn’t get in to work but could get as far as Buckingham Palace so couldn’t resist running down to take a few pictures cause who knows I will be here when the next storm hits in 18 years.  I also took some pictures of the terribly cliché London thing covered in snow cause they were just so pretty.

Fall behind

So we officially changed our clocks on Saturday night (okay technically Sunday morning, and technically since we can’t’ find our microwave manual, our microwave is still back on last week time) but back home they don’t actually change their clocks until next week. In the past we all did it on the same day until March 2007 when the US government decided that they would change it so that instead of being on the first Sunday in April and last Sunday in October (as we are), they would change it to the Second Sunday in March and the First Sunday in November.  Of course, most of Canada followed suit…hey everyone thinks we are American anyway!

I find it strange that all of a sudden someone decided that time change time, would change.  Are we as humans that easily programmable that someone just tells us to add or lose an hour and we will do it….the answer (in my household anyway) is yes.  And even though technically I don’t think I actually got an extra hour of sleep I woke up all refreshed this morning, enjoying the fact that it was light out when I woke up.  However, my extra hour of rest is long forgotten as it is 5:11pm here and is pitch black out…can I get another hour extra now?  Come on, you changed the dates of the time change, can’t you give us a 26 hour clock but keep the 8 hour work day? 

Although it is marginally more convenient to only be 4 hours ahead of our friends and family in Canada vs. the normal 5 but that only lasts for a week then we are back to normal…depressing normal winter time.  At least here though we don’t get freezing temperatures (rarely below 0C) and hardly get snow (except in April when my in laws visit)  so it is marginally more tolerable than at home…but since I said that I have a feeling we are in for a cold, snowy winter.

Sunny September Weekend

This weekend we had absolutely beautiful weather with a cloudless blue sky both Saturday and Sunday. Since our endless DIY project still isn’t finished, we had to venture out on Saturday to do some errands but were able to enjoy the sun in the afternoon while painting 9 miles of trim.

Sunday we decided to forget about the flat for a bit and headed to Hampstead Heath in North London. Hamptstead Heath is a massive park that measures 3.2 sq.km (1.24 sq. miles) of rolling hills, forest, playgrounds and 25 ponds. It also has one of London’s highest points on top of Parliament Hill (the highest point called Kite hill due to its ideal terrain for kite flying) which on a clear day you can see St Paul’s Cathedral and Canary Wharf to the East of the city.

It was a bit hazy but you could see Canary Wharf in the distance

This was our first proper visit to ‘the Heath’ as the first time we went we couldn’t find it and had to head back home after spending an hour walking up and down the High Street looking for a giant grassy area. This trip we were equipped with our AtoZ as well as my blackberry GPS so there was no way the Heath could hide from us.

This doesn’t look like the way to the tube

Once we found it and started hiking through, I was totally taken aback the size of the trees and density of the forest…you really had to stop and remind yourself that you were still in London as it felt like you had wandered into some massive national park and were trying to make your way back to your campsite. As I am the Queen of inappropriate shoes (did the entire Cotswolds trip in high heel shoes last weekend – even the bit when we went to visit cows through the mucky grassy field), my flip flops certainly got a work out and reminded me often while stumbling down rocky hills that next time I should wear something with more grip…..or just with grip for that matter.

Tree on the Heath

All in all it was another lovely weekend in the city and I found myself amazed yet again, that after almost 3 years in the city that we are still finding areas like this to explore. Next time I am going back to that kite area (in high heels), I always lived too close to trees or telephone poles to get a nice proper kite fly.

P.S. Right now as I type, the hubby is sitting at the computer with his earphones on listening to news reports about the market.  He just told me we are in market meltdown…its fun living with such an optimist. (Adrienne hits publish on her blog, puts her fingers in her ears and hums loudly successfully ignoring the financial state of the world for yet another day)