AC UK

I have a friend whose name is Ann Caroline but everyone calls her AC. Every time I hear the abbreviation AC I think of her. Not the machine that makes the air cooler.

I mentioned in last week’s post that we were entering heat wave number 2 for this year.

We managed through number 1 in May but I would say we all barely managed, especially the 13 year old furred creature, who was very unhappy some of the time.

As noted, this is not a country which is prepared for this kind of hot weather. A significant portion of the housing stock was built at the end of the 19^th/beginning of the 20^th century and is terraced brick with single glazed windows and no insulation. So, cold in the winter, hot in the summer. Even the stuff built after WW2 gave little consideration to ventilation or heat retention. Stiff upper lip?

It takes a fair bit of money to adapt these sorts of buildings to climate change.

And, air conditioning really isn’t a thing here – until now. You get it some places (eg, some shops). Museums, hospitals and schools were not built to address these issues (even though this need was raised 30 years ago). So, a load of schools in certain parts of England were closed midweek.

We ran over 30 degrees Celsius here most of the week, with it feeling almost 40 (over 100 farenheit). The middle of the day from Tuesday through Friday was totally brutal. No overnight respite either. Just hot and humid.

I had work done on my house (mid-terrace built in 1910) in 2020. If I had known what I know now (hindsight is a wonderful thing) the heating would have been a heat pump (via which you can get both heat and AC) vs the current mains gas central heating, underfloor heating in the big open back room, special roller blinds on the glass roof, and some other tweaks in the cavity walls.

So, I finally bit the proverbial bullet and bought a portable AC unit. I don’t want AC for all kinds of reasons but between dog and me getting older and body not adjusting to temp changes as well as it used to something needed to be done to address our needs – assuming our world will continue to be hotter and get even hotter.

Installing this was a faff and I only plan to use it when we have weather like this. Because it needs to be near a window for the vent hose, its positioning is a pain. But having the interior of the downstairs at 24 degrees Celsius or below is worth the trouble.

(Trying to stay in the cool airflow)

I feel for people on mainland Europe, where the heat is even worse and again there’s little AC.

I wasn’t surprised that when I finally did decide I needed to do this that many units within a vaguely affordable range were sold out. And just to say the type of unit you get in (at least) NYC hung in a cage outside a window is perishing rare here.

So, there you go. As I started this post at 3:30 pm on day 1 of the worst temps (Tuesday). It’s bearable in here and the humidity reading, which is one of the most problematic aspects of this house, is in the healthy range (this morning it was in the dangerous area).

To make this en point for this blog, I will just say I’m in Heretic Perfumes Nosferatu which is so cold I have to gird my loins to wear it in normal weather (cold as hell lilac and iris). I looked longingly at Divine and Lutens La Dompteuse Encagée but big white floral would have been headache-inducing (over the course of the week, the area around the jasmine outside smelled almost nauseating, completely narcotic). Not even cologne appealed. I also broke out the Heretic Black Salt sample the next day.

Saturday the temps declined enough for us all to be much more comfortable. So, in celebration I wore Dompteuse. It felt wonderful. Also heard from friends in Paris that on Friday night they were finally able to open their apartment windows.

So, are you in a heatwave, have experienced a heat bomb (I did during the first half of my Europe trip in 2024), have AC or hate it? And what do you wear (perfume and clothes) when it’s too hot and humid for cologne? And eat (I’ve consumed a lot of watermelon)?

Oh, and this was my first go at uploading using the MacBook rather than the PC laptop.

Pics: mine

Note: I bought my AC on the Saturday before all this started (20 June). It arrived on Tuesday. I paid £329. The same model was up to £700 on Wednesday, 24 June. On Thursday, 25 June, amazon had it for £900. Then, it disappeared completely. Extortion.

NB: Next period of high heat starts on Saturday, the 4^th of July…