"Once in a lifetime heatwave"

We arrived in Vancouver yesterday. It is sizzling.

The air is so charged with heat there is a possibility we may be able to fry an egg on the stovetop tomorrow morning without turning the element on. The pancakes will likely require the normal cooking method to be employed.

A7 of the Vancouver Sun has a quote from Environment Canada meteorologist David Jones. He says: "Five consecutive days with temperatures over 32 C .... We're going to do that this week. That's only happened three times since 1880".

This is the kind of humidity that means you can focus on nothing bar the fact that you are sweaty (possibly smelly) and require cooling agents... incessantly. Round the clock vigilance.

So far we have employed the usual methods such as swimming (Kitsilano has a 137m pool!), eating spicy food (specifically wasabi), drinking cold and hot beverages (the theory being that if we drink hot tea it will make us sweat more and dissapate the heat).

We are enjoying the sunshine, however looking for rental accommodation and finding it both pricey and inconveniently "just taken" is starting to wear a little thin.

Mustn't grumble though, better just to sweat this one out, as I see from the metservice and frixo websites that tonight in Wellington it will be 7 degrees, and tomorrow in Slough it will (actually) be drizzly. Incidentally today's high for Slough is listed as N/A. Perhaps that just means no one cares, seeing as everyone's probably in Swindon on 'oliday.

Mrs R