Simmering Summer

I haven't been blogging the past week, partly because I've been VERY HOT, literally. In fact, I don't want to do anything else, except think about how to keep cool.

The heatwave struck Melbourne last Wednesday and we've been sweltering under maximum temperatures of 38- 43 degrees celcius in the day. We tried to escape to the shopping center but so did everyone else. The air-con inside wasn't particularly strong that day, I think partly due to the crowd and the heat outside. Anyway how long can you window shop? And with no sheltered parking at most places, your car literally turned into an oven sitting under the hot sun.

To make things worse, we discovered the air-con in our car doesn't work well just when we needed it most. We sat like buns in a steamer on the way there (with the windows up) and on the way back (with the windows down), we were roast chicken in a convection fan oven. Thankfully, the air-con is fixed now.

At home, we had our air-conditioner on the whole day and night. Our bedroom was upstairs but unfortunately had no air-conditioner. In addition, upstairs has always been warmer than the ground floor. So in winter, it's a great place to go up to at night but during times like these, a few minutes there would get you perspiring and feeling agitated.

The first stuffy, warm and restless night, we couldn't sleep well at all. XX woke up a few times crying, probably feeling warm. He was already stripped down to his diapers, so we just gave him a wet wipe and some water in a bottle. He finished 2 bottles that night. After that night, we decided to move some mattresses downstairs and spend the night in the living room. The kids slept much better after that.

Going topless, outdoor dining on a warm summer evening

Everyone else who has fans or air-con must have switched them on those nights. All the fans in Big W were sold out. The power consumption was so huge that some power stations couldn't handle the demand and were shut down in many parts of Melbourne. We experienced power outage on Friday evening. Luckily the power came back after about an hour.

The weather has improved alot since and Saturday and Sunday feels like heaven when temperatures came down to about 31 deg.