Original Post intended for June 21st, 2005
Ug.
We've heard a lot of accented voices (or wait, do we have the accents over here?) mumbling about the "hottest day of the century." Of course, for a century that's only 4 and a half years old (yup, that's how I count my centuries - I celebrated the new millennium on Jan 1, 2001 too. Sorry), I'm not too impressed. What I am is hot. We slept horribly in our tiny room. The air was so still that it was hard to breathe out. Our last exhale seemed to still be in front of our face, preventing the current breath from getting out...

Anyway, our first hot morning, we spent a pound each on little half-litre bottles of water, but when we came back to our place yesterday to change out of our sweaty clothes, we figured we could do better. One block over from Earl's Court Road, we found a little supermarket. Well, "super" is probably an exaggeration. "Mighty" might even be too much. So...I guess we found a little market. We got gi-normous 2 litre bottles for 69 pence. Seemed like a steal! Though we initially hated lugging the things around, it made a HUGE difference in the rest of our day.

We went back last night to get today's supply, and they were all out of water. All water. Except for some small bottles of sparkling stuff. No gracias, we said, we'll be back tomorrow. Well, their 10:00 p.m. shipment didn't come by last night, so they are still out of the big waters. :-( But we'll find some more someplace. I hope.

It is kind of funny though, the trash cans & recycling bins are already overflowing with spent water bottles. Weird scene.

What I wanted to point out, though, is how quickly the term "cold" became a relative adjective... When we were leaving the States, we had ice galore in our little airport-purchased pops, we had ice all the way over on our flight, and then when we landed, ice disappeared.

We were prepared for that, though. Not really a big deal. People told us, and we listened. But instead of us lamenting the lack of ice in our waters, etc., we instead have shifted the entire definition of what we're looking for when looking for cold water. These big bottles we bought? They were sitting NEAR the cooler. On top of the coolers. But not IN them. The coolers were for the beer and expensive drinks. The Pimm's. But when we got our hands on the water that had barely even hinted at being chilled, we gulped it down fast, and rejoiced at it's cooling, refreshing powers.

Lukewarm, meet Cold. Cold will be taking your place for a while. Please step aside. Thank you.

Wow, sorry. That was Much Ado About Nothing. I guess I will sign off for now. I'ma go get a Pimm's - Enjoy it in the park. And don't take this the wrong way, but I hope it's cold where you are.