Griping about the weather

So far this summer there have been only a handful of hot days where the temperature has topped 30C. I’ve been happy with this, one day at a time is easy to manage and recover from, though no doubt throngs of beach goers out there are griping about the lack of suitable weather for a skin-sizzle at the beach.

The media manages to make a big deal of hot weather, both before, during and after the event. Dire warnings are made about extremes of heat which may kill babies and old people; both ends of the age scale which have either not had time to build up their coping-with-heat mechanisms or at the other end where their coping-with-heat mechanisms have simply worn out and no longer deliver the required goods.

I had a conversation recently with an acquaintance and the talk moved swiftly to the topic of the hot weather we’ve endured this summer. When I ventured the opinion that the hot days, so far, hadn’t been too unbearable that idea was promptly squashed. 

I then listened to a blow by blow description of every unbearable minute of a recent unbearably hot day. Not only was it an unbearably hot day but there was a gathering at a pub to attend.Travel to and from was in an air-conditioned car and no self-respecting pub would be without cooling on any day of summer, never mind a hot one. You might think this would be a plus and make for some comfort. 

Not at all.

An opportunity to feel even more aggrieved about the weather must never be lost. In the griper’s car there is a temperature gauge and on the journey home this showed the outside temperature standing at 44.5C.   But was the temperature gauge accurate? It is a Korean car after all.  Maybe their temperature gauges are limited to a maximum reading.  Maybe it was even hotter and you wouldn’t know how much you were suffering.

Imagine that?

At this point I interrupted to say the thing which annoyed me most of all through this hot weather, was the constant talking about it. Articles in the paper and talk back radio never let up on the constant refrain of how terrible the weather will be and how will we cope with it.  I listen to the radio and all I want to do is shout ‘Shut up. Just shut up about the weather. Talking about it endlessly doesn’t make it more tolerable.’

There was a moment’s silence on the line, the conversation went on but it was a new subject.

So, there you have it. 

That’s my gripe for today; people who gripe incessantly about the weather.