Sunday scribblings "Extreme".

G'Day,
Hope all is well with you where ever you be in this extreme weather. I have been looking at what has been posted so far on S.S. and who could omit commenting on the weather that is occurring on both sides of the world. Extreme.
I find that word a bit hard to write about. Extreme, extreme extreme extreme, extre, extra, eme, me. That word is so over used today by advertisers, and the media, it has become an annoyance to me. Cars, driving, sport, food, behaviors, people, crime and cruelty, atmosphere, weather etc, etc, etc. Um, um, um!
We are having an extreme heatwave in the eastern states this week. The temperature over the past few days has reached into the very high 30's and low 40's and will continue to do so for the next few days at least. February is the hottest month of the year and it is yet to come.
My house isn't air conditioned. 37 point something Celsius = 100 Fahrenheit.
Lazy, languid, summer swelter days, reminiscent of my childhood playing in the water, wearing as little as possible and paying the price with sunburn that would blister and peel my english style skin in the days before sunblock creams. Heat exhaustion, dehydration and stress, I have had that quite a few times over the years. Memorably too.
Playing under the hose on the back lawn to cool down or running across the scorching hot sand at the beach or the cement at the local swimming pool, to salve my burning feet in the water when I was a kid.
Hot sticky nights. Constantly changing position, searching for a cooled spot on the sheet and pillow.
Stripping off and sleeping naked with the electric fan blowing on bare skin, drying the perspiration there to cool me. Windows opened wide and curtains pulled back in the hope of catching any tiny breeze that might come past, bugger the security. And... isn't menopause fun at this time of year, don't you just love those hot flushes girls!
Hot scorching winds that you know and dread will make any tiny spark become a catastrophic bush fire that will kill and destroy.
Not wanting to cook meals because cooking exacerbates the heat in the house and the heat takes away your appetite for hot food anyway.
Drinking gallons of whatever is wet and cold.
Working, because you have to, with the sweat dripping down your face and feeling dirty and horrible until you go home and run the cold shower on your head to feel clean and cool again.
Being as frugal as you can with water to keep your garden alive until it rains again and watching the weather forecasts for predictions of rain that never comes when you need it to. You watch the heavy promising clouds build each after noon and watch them float away again.
Watching the board on the side of the road that tells us how much water we have consumed each day and the level of our water storage. Yesterday the storage level for Canberra was 51.2%.
The highest I have seen it since moving here 2 years ago was 54% a few months ago now.
Australia, the driest continent on earth, we do so love our water and our country and all its different seasons.
Yeah you could call us a bit extreme at the moment.