Staying Cool In The Pool

It is hot. Exhaustingly, swoon-inducingly hot. It happened all of a sudden – one day it was hovering at around 28°C, the next it had shot up to 38°C and it hasn’t really fallen since then. This is it now – it’s only going to get hotter. Yes, hotter. It can reach 50°C at the height of the summer. But let me tell you, 38°C is hot enough – the morning of the 10°C temperature hike, we walked out of the house into what felt like a wall of heat. It hits you like a train and immediately saps you of energy. It really is frightening to think that it could get up to 12°C hotter than this. You just can’t do anything in that heat. I was in the garden for ten minutes this morning, hanging the washing out, and I stepped back into the cool interior of the house with a huge sigh of relief. I was dazed, confused and in need of a large glass of water. So what on earth do you do during a summer that hot in a place like Karratha where everything is outdoors. There are no museums, no galleries, no cinemas, no large and lovely shopping centres. And there are only so many times you can play Scrabble.


It is therefore very good news for us that we have friends who have just moved into a house with a pool. A cool, refreshing swimming pool is just what you need when it is too hot to do much else – lounging in the pool with an ice-cold drink, a good book, and some relaxing music playing is just the ticket on a blisteringly hot Sunday. And that is exactly what we did at the weekend. The pool was just the right temperature and it was so lovely that I really had to force myself out when it was looking like I might soon look forty years older if my skin wrinkled any further. Glass of pear cider in hand, I chatted away as meat sizzled on the Barbie and something very chilled was played on the ipod. Yes, I think I could quite happily while away a scorching summer in that manner. Perhaps I’ll be alright after all.