While waiting to collect my quad grande vanilla latte at Starbucks today (yes, I drink that much coffee), the barista looked at me and asked “How do you like the heat?” He was referring to the glorious Indian summer we’ve enjoyed here for the past week in southern England. We’ve had exactly the kind of whether that people plan their holidays around, sunny with barely a cloud in the sky and temperatures hovering just above 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
It’s moments like this when it’s obvious to me that I’m not English. Heat? What heat? It’s not hot man, it’s perfect. I grew up in southern Virginia where the summer would regularly see weeks of 100 degrees and air so thick with humidity you could cut it with a knife. It would be so hot and miserable you couldn’t stand outside in the middle of the day for more than a few minutes without having to go back in and rinse off all your sweat. This is probably why I don’t fully appreciate tea the way the English do. For good reason, the southern United States is a region of iced tea drinkers, and that’s what I know. To me, tea is an icy beverage for quenching your thirst on a hot day, not something warm to shake off the damp chill.
I’m sure we’ll have typical English weather again soon enough. But for now I am going to enjoy this glorious weather while it lasts. This is the kind of whether that begs me to drive with the windows down, the radio up, and the wind blowing my hair into a ball of tangles. I don’t care that I’m tying to get into the office and am stuck behind a tractor. It just means I can enjoy the sun and a little more DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince singing Summertime.
So I said “no, I don’t mind the heat at all. I love it!”
