Melanie is our host for this week’s Truthful Tuesday. I’m sure this question is very relevant for the American summer. We’re shivering through Tasmanian winter but I remember hot summers only too well.

My Question Today is:  

How Do You Like To Keep Cool When It’s Broiling Outside? (example: 75 degrees Fahrenheit equals 23.89 degrees Celsius for those not living in 1955, where America got stuck (partially) on the whole metric idea).

First of all, while here in Tasmania 23.89 degrees Celsius is quite warm I wouldn’t call it broiling. When we lived in Adelaide summer days could get up to 42 degrees Celsius (work it out for yourselves) quite regularly, sometimes for a week or more at a time.

I don’t enjoy hot weather and the older I am the less I like it. I refuse to go to mainland Australia between November and March now except for weddings and funerals.

So, how did we stay cool back in those days? Well, our house did not have air conditioning so it was a problem. We visited relatives who had air-con of course. We sometimes went to a local shopping mall after work and enjoyed the air conditioning there. Our favourite was Marion Shopping Centre. We browsed around the shops , had a meal at a café and sometimes even went to a movie as there was a cinema in the mall. Late night shopping only happened once a week though so we couldn’t always do that. Occasionally we went to one of Adelaide’s surviving drive-in movie theatres. We liked the one at West Beach. A former workmate of David’s had a chicken shop there so we’d go and get chicken for dinner and eat it on the sea front, then we’d head for the drive in. It wasn’t cool but it was cooler than our house.

At home we kept the curtains and blinds closed all day to keep the sun out. We had a big picture window in our living room that got morning sun while the kitchen faced west. As soon as a breeze came up in the evening we opened everything up to cool the house. Meanwhile we sat on the front porch where it was a bit cooler, sometimes until 10pm. On really bad nights the temperature did not drop below 30 degrees all night and we’d sleep badly even with the ceiling fan running. In the morning I was almost glad to be getting on an air conditioned train to go to work although I knew a lot of my day would be spent cleaning boiling hot trains. They were like ovens once the engines were turned off. Needless to say we took a lot of showers and consumed a lot of cold drinks. I can even remember sitting in a tepid bath in an effort to cool off. The trouble was once you got out and got dressed you felt just as bad as before. After a few days of that sort of weather I just felt tired and crabby all the time.

We could have saved up and bought a reverse cycle air conditioner but in the end we had a much better idea. We moved to Tasmania.