Burning Down the House

Lordy, lordy, summer arrived this week in the greater London area.  It has been hovering around 80 for the past several days and our house doesn't get any shade.  This doesn't seem like such a big deal until you throw in the fact that we have no air conditioning.  No one does.  


A year ago, when the warmer weather started creeping up on us, I purchased seven fans.  Nice, attractive ones, but still the old school sort on pedestals that oscillate and make way more noise than a ceiling fan. What I wouldn't give for a ceiling fan, but they're pretty rare over here.  


Thus far the flying bug count - including bees, wasps and some sort of large beetle about the size of a Texas cockroach - is eight with some of the windows raised so we don't suffocate.  It's England, so no screens either.  I don't know why the girls always holler for me to come kill the flying critters because I'm no handier with the flyswatter (imported from a Wal-Mart back home) than they are.  We just kinda stand around and shiver and say "Ewww" in unison and see if we can put off the bug squashing until dad gets home.


With the warmer weather, it is definitely time for school to end because they don't have AC or fans on campus.  They just have to throw open the doors and windows, hoping for a bit of breeze to keep it comfortable.  Thursday night the 5th grade presented their annual stage production in the very warm theatre.  So warm I could feel sweat trickling down my back while sitting up in the balcony section fanning myself with the program.  So warm that my pants were getting glued to the seat with perspiration.  So warm that I was ready to start peeling off clothes, a scary thought, indeed.

The play was really cute.  There was a whole lotta Shakespeare phrasing they kept in this abridged version - thee and thou and hast and hither.  Our daughter was a faerie and she enjoyed her part that included frolicking around on stage with the other faeries and Puck.