The heat is on

I was rather hoping to get a photo from the play itself, and I know there were plenty taken; but none of them has circulated back to me yet. I live in hope. So here's a rehearsal photo, so that you can see what I mean about some of the costumes. The Caterpillar (who's actually pretty cheerful in real life, but she decided she was going to play him as really grumpy, so she got grumpy make-up). The Cheshire Cat - not really furry, at least, but not a lot better. The White Rabbit - on the face of it not too bad, but she had to do an awful lot of running around. At least the Queen came off better than you'd think, because that crinoline thing is really thin, so she was at any rate getting a decent draught. But we were all pretty hot on Saturday. Even I was hot wearing the boater, which shaded my face; I couldn't wait to get out of that bow tie. (And in case you're wondering about the March Hare, the Duchess - this being the lady at the back with the pig - doubled up on that role. She's pretty good at doing different voices.)

What I didn't tell you at the time was that, while all this was going on, my 87-year-old mother was in hospital because she was overheated. Thankfully my sister found her in time, so she didn't need to stay overnight; they sent her home about tea time, having cooled her down, hydrated her, done all the usual tests, and medicated her somewhat. But it could have been really nasty, because, in common with a lot of old people, she no longer feels the heat as heat. She does get tired, confused, and brain-fogged, and she starts finding everyday objects like coffee cups strangely heavy; but she doesn't connect that with the fact that she's too hot. It's been about five degrees cooler up there on average than down here, but nonetheless her house has been - again on average - about four degrees hotter than mine, because she just didn't see the need to take any precautions to cool it down. Since then, of course, all three of us have been reading her the riot act about doing sensible things like drawing the curtains when the sun's shining in, opening windows when it's cooler outside than inside, drinking a bit more than she usually does, and not skipping meals (it's fine to eat a bit less if you're too hot, but a very bad idea not to eat at all).

And the following day I suffered a much milder version of the same thing. The school hall where our church meets is quite hard to cool down once it gets hot, and it had obviously got very hot the day before, so on Sunday morning it was still hot (and stifling). Towards the end of the sermon I started to wilt. A friend - who happens to be a doctor - spotted me and came and asked if I was all right; I said "no, not really", so she got me out into the corridor and I had a drink. I didn't really want to have to bunk off early, but although I was now feeling a bit better I still didn't feel that great, so regretfully I decided to go straight home. I knew if I went back in there I was going to feel woozy again. Summertime, and the mongoose is queasy... I just hope they got the place cooled down significantly by Monday, because all the kids are having their exams in there at the moment and I really wouldn't want anyone coming over all funny in the middle of a GCSE.

Why am I going on about overheating on a craft blog? Well, because excessive heat does affect what and how you craft. I think it's fair to say that nobody likes knitting big jumpers in the middle of summer, especially not raglans (where you have pretty much the entire jumper all over your lap while you're working the neckband or collar; at least if it's not a raglan you can probably do that before you do the sleeves). That's fairly basic. But the hotter it gets, the more you need to think about what you're doing.

Sewing, for instance. If you're using a machine this doesn't apply quite so much, because you don't have the fabric on your lap for long periods; however, you probably do have at least some of it on your lap for some length of time, if only to keep it off the floor. But when you hand sew, the temperature does come into play. I don't sew heavy fabrics at all when it's hot, and even with lighter fabrics there are ways of working around the temperature. For instance, at the moment I'm making long skirts, which is quite a lot of fabric; so during the hottest parts of the day, I try to concentrate on smaller pieces such as ties and waistbands, leaving the main seams for later in the evening when it's cooled down a bit. Also, it does partly depend on the weave, but in general, weight for weight, viscose is a lot cooler than cotton, which is useful if you're looking at the forecast and planning which piece to make next. Yesterday it briefly got up to 25 degrees in the flat; I was going to do some sewing, looked at the thermometer, and thought "nope, I'm going to start the next string bag instead". Netting, by its very nature, is not a hot job (and, thankfully, neither are my bead earrings). Knitting is also fine if it's a small piece, so I can do babywear and socks all year round no matter how over-excited the thermometer gets... but that super chunky slipover will have to wait till we have some sensible temperatures again. Right now I'm not holding my breath.

And then there's baking. I need to make banana bread today (not because I'm running out of cake - the accidental parkin will do me several more days - but because if I don't, the bananas aren't going to keep very long in this weather), and I am so very thankful I have an air fryer. It does my baking for me without noticeably heating up the kitchen as a conventional oven does, and the results certainly aren't inferior. Even so, it's still something I tend to do in the morning if possible, when it's cooler (or, failing that, around lunchtime; whatever the temperature is doing outside, the flat is usually hottest around four to five in the afternoon). All of which reminds me that if you have six bananas, you need three of them to make banana bread, but you unexpectedly find they all need using quite fast and it's too hot to want to eat them as they are... then you can mash up the other three bananas, tip in a good whack of sugar (I didn't weigh it, but I'd guess it was about 200 g), mix very well, and freeze. You don't actually need that amount of sugar for sweetening; what it does is to stop the mixture freezing rock solid, so you can still scoop it with a spoon. The result is very nice and highly refreshing, though, obviously, with that amount of sugar, a little goes a long way!

Anyway... roll on autumn; and in the meantime, given the forecast for early next week, I think my next skirt's probably going to be viscose.