The day London reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit

So I’m super behind on posts, even from way before this lol but I defo got my karma for saying how I enjoyed hot weather and wasn’t worried about our mini heatwave. I thought I chose the sensible option of getting out of a greenhouse type place and going out in nature for the day. I chose to go to forest row in the morning, which is juSt over an hours drive for me and gas woodlands, cafes and a natural cool fresh spring so unlimited water all day. It was one of those days that went from bad to worse. To begin with the cafe was closed so there wasn’t anywhere to sit in the shade, then after one bottle of spring water the spring ran dry and that was it. I took my bottle of water and headed to the town for a coffee. Nowhere had aircon here but they had a little fan and I felt quite chill with my coffee and I downed my spring water and had a look around. The cafe was also a bizarre and a plant shop and many things. You know I love my plants and coffee :D

i got myself a dress and a new little plant for my already huge collection, this is a sygonium pink splash:

So the cafe shut super early at like midday cause they all decided it was too hot and after I realised I needed some more water since the spring was dry, I went to mini Tesco, but they only had a few small bottles left I got a couple but that probably wasn’t enough in hindsight. I then went to co op but there fridges and freezers were all broken...This is what happens to our country when we have even mildly hotter or colder weather, everything grinds to a halt, We really don’t do well here lol. I even checked out the other spring water, there is one wt the farm they uv light clean and then the original lions head, I knew it would be dry too but can’t hurt to check... no dry.

I felt fine tho and decided to head to the forest it was about 2 pm so would be cooling down I hoped soon. So here was when I started feeling a bit ill headache, sickness and weakness. I went into the shade but that’s when I realised in 104 degree heat even the shade is warm. My air con didn’t even seem to blow out cold air. I just had no idea how to cool down. Most places were closed in this tiny town, the shade was hot, my water was hot after just an hour in the car. I made it to a tiny golf club but that was shut, there was another one but by this point I had gotten too weak to even drive to it, I really felt pretty stuck and out of options, i even tried pouring the most tepid of it over myself but I just didn’t seem to be able to get myself cool and I got so ill I could barely move. I ended up lying in my car in as much shade as I could get and falling asleep but when I woke up I just felt worse. I had this watermelon in the car that felt quite cool, opened it with a car key and force fed myself, I was so weak that with some of it I held it up to my mouth and just dropped it on the floor unable to open my mouth. I think the weather slightly cooled down by 5 pm and it just somehow helped me start to feel a tiny bit better, along with no doubt replacing the lost electrolytes. In hindsight due to some of the symptoms I am actually not even sure if it was heat or the water and the extreme heat had activated some bacteria in the natural spring water. It did seem a pretty intense reaction for someone to have when I didn’t even rly do anything active or go out of the shade much. After about 5 hours I drove home, I was still so exhausted and had to stop about 5 times just to get back. My legs and arms even had gone week and tingling and strange, probably from electrolyte loss. When I got back I had another half watermelon and some trace minerals and fell asleep by the open door with a fan directly on me. After a day of rest I feel fine now but I think I got my karma for saying that I love heat and was happy we are having a heatwave lol. I do still love sun tbh and typical Uk is back to cold and rainy only two days after our mini heat wave 😬 where is the nice middle point? The Uk just isn’t geared up for these heat waves.