Canicule, June 2025 and beyond

Thank you but not a lot these days, a gentle walk up the field with Jules and an even gentler one back down in the forest. :grinning:

Make sure you’re drinking plenty (water or isotonic is best, apparently)

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Do drink loads of water and a coffee can really help if you’re short of breath.

Caffeine is a methylxanthine, a bronchial dilator that has a similar action to the medication theophylline that used to be used to treat asthma attacks.

Some interesting reading:

Please note - Chocolate good! :chocolate_bar:

A tad off topic, but I’ve discovered that my morning mug of coffee acts as a pain killer for my sciatica, and on researching, coffee can indeed act as a painkiller.

Dark chocolate

I was out in Las Vegas and Arizona four weeks ago and it was between 45 and 50°C, hottest in Vegas for very many years so they put big fans and sprays everywhere on the pavements and leaving the airport. We decided not to drive to Death Valley in case the car suffered problems and we would get suck. Therefore its nice to get back to the relatively cool (33°C here today) and less humidity than in Tennessee where you were drenched in sweat all the time.

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Also @Mark I do drink water but not a lot of it, a full glass first thing and another last thing in order to down all the pills with one or two now and again in between.
Coffee intake is similar though each glass is only of 2 fingers (to use a whisky analogy).

I have been buying 90% dark chocolate since hospital but only eat one square with my after dinner cafe/calva, it avoids the need for sugar but I am losing my taste for it.

All the things I dutifully cut down on, sugar, salt, processed food I still crave and the reason for my weight loss I think is that I have lost my appetite while not breaking the rules. Thus feeling less hungry and eating much less. If only I could get some Shredded Wheat I would buy some milk again (I will today anyway having poured the ancient stuff down the sink.).

Back to the canicule, forecast for 32 today and no rain anywhere on the horizon. Off to the shops, a quick petit cafe in the coffeeshop and a hopeful tap on Christine’s door. Hopeful because the good news is she is improving after the chemo I think and is getting out more. She waved at me fom a car last week driven by another friend of her late husband who is even older than me. The hussey, all these old men chasing her and soon she will be sidling up to the youngsters (60 somethings :rofl:) again. :roll_eyes:

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We spent a few weeks in an RV many years ago and visited Death Valley. It rained!

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I did a photographic road trip around Arizona some 16 years ago and we went to the Painted Desert. There was snow on the ground! Not something you would automatically associate with Arizona.

ETA: the trip was in January 2009, hence the snow.

Although on the way up from Phoenix we did pass through the aptly named and snowy town of Snowflake.

Today’s trivia fact (which I really hope is true): Snowflake AZ was founded by two Mormon pioneers, Erastus Snow and William Jordan Flake. :smiley:

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Well I thoroughly enjoyed my road trip with my daughter and we plan to do something else next summer together, probably up New England way. Her hubby is off to Vegas shortly to speak at a big tech conference and then he is off on a lone road trip upto Utah and back before coming home. The Hoover dam was a bit of a disappointment though, much smaller and not as high as I had imagined but worth the visit. The US is very very expensive currently as everything has been taxed to the hilt with more local taxes added and Vegas currently down 60% on visitor numbers compared to last summer.

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Vigilance Rouge for a large chunk of the south today and tomorrow. Forecast 42 C here in the Black Mountains and 43+ in the central valley :hot_face:. It was 28 C in the shade here at 8.30. For all of you out there in this heat, do take care. We’ll be staying indoors and using our clim if it gets too hot inside.

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Because of the canicule and the recent fires, the order forbidding people from entering forestry or scrubland in Aude has been extended for another week. Anyone in Aude need to be aware of this. As all my walking is within forestry or scrubland (not much else here) that sort of stops me going for a walk for another week. Unless I want to walk along a tarmac road like my neighbour does :crazy_face:

West of you, already too hot to go far at 9am today so am in mole/hermit mode with AC on and shutters down, all the neighbours in same frame of mind too. Those with fair/moles on skin, COVER UP!

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hairbear, la Clape between Narbonne and Narbonne Plage is closed for the whole of August, I believe. Since the fire a few years ago they don’t take any chances and you can see why, when the fire chiefs think 90% of fires are started by humans one way or another.

The Narbonne Plage/St Pierre la Mer fireworks on 16th August have been replaced by a drone show for the first time, also due to fire risk. I suppose it’ll be quieter.

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Probably a lot more entertaining as well, incredible display for the late queens jubilee.

I didn’t see that, maybe it’s on Youtube somewhere. We liked the drones that did a show in Marseille when the Belem arrived with the Olympic flame, the first time we’d seen drones used for that.

I went to Death Valley in the early 2000’s and it reached 50C. I did a very short walk in the desert, but my friend at the time, nearly passed out, so we went back to the car and the a/c. An American tourist was staying at the same accommodation and he’d been out that day looking for rattlesnakes and had found a number of them. :open_mouth:

I loved the Whispers (HS days memories, activated)

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Stay safe, Hot People!

A mini-canicule is forecast for Sud-Angleterre as French hot air gets exported northwards, but it’s only going to get up to 31C here so hardly qualifies…

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That sounds unbearable, I could well be like your friend in 50C. I don’t know why someone would go looking for rattlesnakes but I suppose there are more dangerous ones.

Years ago I went to a reptile place in Florida, mainly snakes and alligators, where one of the talks was about milking rattlesnakes for venom. The man taking venom from a snake was surrounded by them in the enclosure and they left him alone. His theory was that they will strike if they feel threatened, using about a third of their body length. If they don’t hit you, they won’t try again if you keep your distance.

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