Another Hot, Sunny Day

I did have something else in mind to blog about today but I couldn’t resist describing just what I am doing right now. Other than blogging, obviously. As it is a Saturday I thought I would escape the dark, air-conditioned interior of the house and get some fresh air into my lungs and sun on my face. I am lying in our back garden under a cerulean sky, the sun gloriously warm on my skin. I can smell sun cream (mine), that heady, happy, holiday aroma of freshly mown grass (not mine, I don’t do mowing, especially not in this heat), and a light, sweet perfume I can only assume is being brought to me on the breeze from the tiny purple flowers covering the tree languidly hanging over our fence. However, the overriding smell as you emerge from the gloom of the living room (purposely kept that way in an attempt to keep it as cool as possible) into the dazzling sunlight, is heat.


You might not think that heat has a smell and I suppose technically it doesn’t, but it certainly affects whatever it touches. Hot brick, hot grass, hot dust, hot iron. They all have a distinct aroma and it is that which you smell first as you step outside on a hot day in the Pilbara. It is not an unpleasant smell, in fact it reminds me only of happy times. Those all too rare summer days in England when the sky is cloudless and the sun hot – sitting in a pub garden wearing a cotton sun dress and drinking Pimms; walking across a sun-baked London on our way to watch the tennis at Wimbledon; stepping out of our front door and feeling the thrill of being able to leave the house without a cardigan or jacket, of wearing sunglasses and sandals rather than scarves and socks. Only those who have never lived anywhere cold and wet fail to still be thrilled by a scorching hot day. It was only when I moved back to England for university that I realised just how much I missed and loved the warmth. Now I don’t believe I will ever cease to appreciate the rush of endorphins that flood my body with joy as I draw the blinds to reveal another hot, sunny day.