Some like it hot ... but not this little black duck

Seeing as my manuscript, and my blog, purport to be somewhat connected with nineteenth century Paris, I'd planned to blog along those lines this week; then  ... BA-BAHM. Nope. I'm sitting on my butt in the middle of an antipodean heatwave, and try as I might, I just cannot transport myself from my sweltering,  43C (110F) bastard of a day, to nineteenth century, autumnal Paris. We have at least another, whole, goddam week of this shite, saddled with an aircon that only works until around midday, then goes on strike. Little Aussie bleeder that it is. 

Insanely hot weather is really weird. I jumped in the shower three times today (all ablutions done under three minutes, as per our drought-breaker shower timer). I turned on the cold tap only, and it ran hot for half my shower. My shampoo and conditioner were reduced to a molten slick. And when I jumped out, I kid you not, I air-dried in under three minutes. No towel required.

Then there's the bugs. The usually reclusive spiders that descend from pergola beams by their webs en masse, to catch any puff of air -  I have to navigate through this icky mine-field to get to the garden hose, and when I water the plants, the bees and wasps swarm about the hot stream of water from the hose, trying to get any drip of moisture they can. 

At least we haven't had a snake under the front door, like we did last year.

And thank goodness the kids think its a hoot. Money in their pockets to buy iceblocks from the school canteen; dinner at the local cafe, since the temp in our kitchen was 35C today. Going to bed soaking wet from the bath ...

Writing? Ha. I'm amazed the lap top hasn't melted. But while words on the page have been beyond me the last couple of days (and probably will remain so until the heatwave is over) I did manage a little bit of plotting. A silver lining to the cloud.

 Now, if only it was a rain cloud ...