Blog 4.0

Yesterday was apparently the hottest June day in the UK on record, and tomorrow is predicted to exceed it. Before I moved to the UK, I was always making fun of my English friends for being such wusses about the weather, complaining about the heat even at 25°C. Even twenty to thirty years ago, weather over 30°C wasn't unheard of in Austria in the summer, and while it wasn't exactly pleasant, I don't remember ever perceiving it as that bad either. But now that I've lived in the UK for over a decade, I get it. The humidity in the air here is just much higher than in central Europe, and it makes even lower temperatures feel really uncomfortable. Yesterday was a real struggle trying to work from home, as I just couldn't think at all with the temperature exceeding 29°C in our flat. Mostly I just stripped down when I wasn't expected to be on a video call, drank pint after pint of water and wandered the house in search of slightly cooler spots. I'm not looking forwa...

The UK's now had two weeks of unusually nice weather, with lots of sun and the temperature hovering around 24 degrees Celsius during the day. It's super pleasant and I rarely feel like an outsider as much as during times like these, because all the natives do is complain about how it's "too hot", which just feels insane to me at these temperatures. In myself, I noticed that all the warmth and sunshine are making me feel much happier and energetic than usual, and I'm not even a particularly outdoorsy person. It's just nice to not have to wrap myself into three layers at all times to not feel cold, which I get to experience so rarely nowadays. (I've become more sensitive to cold with age, and probably suffer from sort of undiagnosed condition related to circulation, as I often have to wear fingerless gloves indoors to prevent my hands from getting so cold they hurt, even when I can objectively tell with the rest of my body that the temperature is not unr...