Hot in the city

Is it me or is it too hot? For May, I mean. Yes, I am complaining about the heat – I’m much happier when I’m cold. Unless, of course, it’s too cold and I’m moaning about it. We spent Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday in picturesque Rye – me scouring the place for estate agent boards, David getting into “boat” mode, Mac wearing his life jacket even for bed on Sunday night and all three dogs gagging to get into the stuff that mermaids live in. It was blissful, idyllic even, lounging around on a yacht (the good thing about accountants is that they know people with money who are not averse to flinging it around) in the middle of the sea. I could get used to it actually. It’s a perk of David’s job that I actually enjoy. What I don’t enjoy is the fifteen million post it notes either in eye searing colours or bearing witty slogans like “Accountants do it by numbers” as they all seem to litter up drawers and every available surface. Oh, the heat makes me grouchy as well.

But you don’t really notice the heat when you’re bobbing about at sea. It was quite a wrench when Pete, our comely skipper, informed us in a wide Irish brogue that “we oughta be getting back now” at nearly 3.30. We’d “set sail” at 10am and spent our time covering ourselves with Factor 30 (Mac on Factor Gazillion – he looked as if he’d been dipped in flour) with the dogs taking the occasional leap into the sea if they got too warm under their umbrella and it was nice and breezy and fresh. Pete seemed quite happy to leave us bobbing about, his cap pulled over his eyes, his bare feet up on some sort of thing next to the steering wheel doodah. David read and unclenched, I read and dozed and Mac was happy creating a story with a length of rope, some action figures and a bowl of water. Lunch was M&S sandwiches washed down with warmish Aqua Libra and a brief (very brief, it was icy cold) into the sea pepped me up enough to take a turn at steering. “Watch out for big ships mummy!” Mac warned me. Actually, we saw quite a few container ships in the distance – but I steered away from them just in case.

The sea fascinates me – so powerful yet it lulls you into a false sense of security. The gentle swell that swirled around us became, for ten minutes as the tide turned, not so gentle and had me clinging onto deck with every fibre of my being. Mac’s innocent question of “how deep is it daddy?” and David’s answer of “very, very, very deep lad” made me a tidge nervous. Just how deep is the sea? I immediately followed my question of “How far are we from shore Pete?” with “No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know”

At nearly 4pm, as we drew closer to the harbour – David having turned mahogany and me a nice lobster pink – and we got all of our things together I felt the weight of the envious stares of overheated holidaymakers as we stepped coolly down from the yacht. I even managed a quick sashay, wafting Ambre Solaire, past an extremely hot and harassed looking woman who was busy castigating her unrepentent daughter for “putting sand all in mummy’s bag”.

It’s quite alright though, normal service was resumed when we got back to the car only to find that the shade we’d parked it in had shifted to the other side of the car park and the large bar of Galaxy I’d left on the dashboard (purely to ensure that I replaced any sugar that I’d perspired out on the boat) had melted all over said dashboard and I turned into a screeching harridan.