Whilst the rest of the UK has been baking in extreme heat, up here in the Hebrides we’ve scarcely broken 16°C.
It’s cool and misty here at the moment, a sea haar drifting around the house like a spectral wraith. Looking over the hills at the back of the croft you can see the mist moving in slow waves across the high moorland.
As I’ve aged my tolerance for heat has substantially reduced. It was never good. I was a pale, red-headed Scot all my life, burning and freckling to a rosy glow instead of toasting to gold like my friends. But my final years living in the Occitane region of France slowly eroded what heat tolerance I had built up.
Nights were the worst in the summer months. Even with shutters closed all day and fans on, we baked. The outdoor temperature was usually in the high 30’s, increasingly in the 40’s as climate change started to bite and extreme temperatures started to become the norm.
We had a pool in the garden and on very hot nights I’d often pad out to it and slip into the cooler water to try and bring my body temperature down in an effort to sleep. But it was a temporary relief. In any case, as water restrictions became more frequent we were unable to fill or refresh the pool and had to watch as algae bloomed in the heat and rendered it unusable. It often sat there, tauntingly turquoise, as we crisped under the sun.
Moving to Skye with its cool summers with temperatures in the high teens or low twenties was a blessed relief. Yes, I missed the endless sunny days of a French summer, but on the plus side I could sleep, and move about during the day without melting.
Bizarrely, we’ve built an eco house here that holds onto its heat for dear life. Heavily insulated, it rarely gets cold. This is wonderful in most seasons up here on this northern isle, but in the summer months it’s huge south facing walls of glass create massive solar gain on all but the cloudiest of days.
On sunny days we find ourselves pulling the blinds down to keep the house cool just as I used to have to do in France because once it’s hot indoors it takes a long time to release the heat.
The irony of this situation isn’t lost on me.
Here we are on a cold northern island still struggling with the heat in the summer despite it being half that of southern France.
I guess there’s always the sea to dip into.
