Selfsufficientish.com

With this heat at the moment I sure that many of you have some tried and tested methods of staying cool. I thought I would start this thread as I think I will melt if this keeps up.

1. cycle to Bristol from Bath on the cycle path. Might sound daft but the railway path is pretty much all undercover of trees and if you get a speed up the woosh of the air cools you down.
2. Shut the curtains during the day.
3. Keep a bottle of water in the fridge.
4. keep those ice cude trays filled

101 ways to SAY cool? You mean like you could say "cool!" in a deep voice like Fonzie, or you could say "coo-wul!" like my kids do when I suggest a trip to the cinema or roller rink, or you could say "cool" in a way that's meant to be calming but is actually infuritaing when someone seems to be getting angry. Erm, I can't hink of any more ways to say cool.

5. homemade ice lollies
6. paper fan (suggested by my 8 year old)
7. Read all day turning off all electric items
8. wear wide brimmed hat
9. a water spray (6 year old this time)


Davina

One for the office:

10. If you have enough natural light (we're south facing yay!) turn off the overhead lights as they make it hotter than a very hot thing!

How not to stay cool, have inconsiderate neighbours with an obsession for the very hot drying cupboard being on *constantly*

11. keep bottles of water in the FREEZER - they defrost quite quickly.

LOL I was expecting lots of variations on the word cool... like... smart, wicked, magic lol

Andy - when I lived in Bristol, we used to walk along the Bristol-Bath path with the dogs (my boyfriend at the time had a boxer dog and a rescue terrier-ish thing and we used to go out a lot of the time with them for exercise - Long Ashton, Frenchay park system, etc)

My son's idea of staying cool indoors is to wear just his underwear - though if he wanted to go out into the garden (like today), he would get his long relatively warm trousers on and a long sleeved top even though I have shorts and a t-shirt for him downstairs. As for watering the garden, he used his liquid gold on the comfrey (or was it the container apple-tree). Bless, he's only 4 and loves visiting CAT.

I need to make a childless visit to CAT. Whenever we go I don't get to actually look at all the stuff and take it in because the kids treat the whole place as a kind of big green Alton Towers, and just jump on and climb all over everything and have a great time.

There's a display that's meant to make you think about they way you live - it's a treadmill with something like "work-earn-spend-consume" on it and you're supposed to laboriously walk the treadmill until you realise you're just going round and round putting in a lot of effort and getting nowhere. Very deep. Except the kids love it, they think it's a roundabout and try to get it going as fast as they can, and jump on and off, and try to hang on whilst leaning outwards so their heads are going round really fast and they get a head rush. It's completely the opposite of the point the designers were trying to make. I love kids.

Hang in there Chicky! They'll be teenagers soon!

What a horrible thing to say!

A friend on another site has just posted a great way to stay cool. Strip down to your knickers and a tshirt, jump in a shower and keep nudging the thermostat down and down until it is as cold as you can take, then get out and sit on a chair in front of a fan. Sounds very cool to me.

The best hot weather tip is to KEEP DRINKING. Don't forget to drink much more than you normally would, especially if you are in the sun or if you are exerting yourself at all, but if you can you're best seeking the shade and avoiding exertion.

I wonder, are the Oz Ishers laughing at us Brits for whinging about the heat when it hasn't even hit 100 yet?

12. Drink a hot cup of tea. Hot drinks make you FEEL hotter by fooling your hypthalamus into thinking your core temp has gone up, so you break out in (more) sweat. 20 mins later your core temp is down, and you feel cooler.

13. Hide in a well-ventilated greenhouse, where the temp is higher but the relative humidity is lower. You can sweat more efficiently in there, and in 10 mins will be feeling much better (take drinks with you though!)

14. Keep relatively still and don't eat, to reduce your metabolic spend. Isotonic drinks ditto since they are "cheaper" to absorb.

15. Drink sweat-promoting drinks, using extracts of herbs like peppermint, sasparilla or borage.

16. Move to the Isle of Man where it is almost permanently dreich

17. Go to either of the banks in Bridport, Dorset. In summer the air-con unit keeps them down at about 16C, but in summer the heating keeps them at about 21C. Go figure.

Surely you mean the winter, not summer hedgy

In the office :

18. Close the blinds and night so that the morning sun does not get a chance to heat up the office.
19. Paint the outside walls white, this helps to reflect heat.

I wonder, are the Oz Ishers laughing at us Brits for whinging about the heat when it hasn't even hit 100 yet?

I laugh at you lot no matter what your temperature is!

hedgewizard wrote:
17. Go to either of the banks in Bridport, Dorset. In summer the air-con unit keeps them down at about 16C, but in summer the heating keeps them at about 21C. Go figure.

Ditto any of the supermarkets in Swindon. T***o don't even have a front door so their air conditioning/heating covers the whole town!

Zoe

I keep cool when I go to bed at night by draping a damp towel over myself for a while.