Buoyant with the notion that it was going to get cooler yesterday, I spent the late morning tackling some of the jobs I had been ‘leaving ’til after’. I heaved over water troughs and scrubbed the green out of them, refilling them with clear cold water and a little cider vinegar. I got the tractor out and cleaned the Shush Sisters’ Pigsty, scooping all the muck and straw into the tractor bucket. I picked and chopped everyones lunch. The animals lunch that is. I pulled down another few bales of hay, loaded up the wheelbarrow and fed the cows under the trees. I added a clip to my step pushing just a little harder. Starting job after job. Around the middle of the day it became apparent that it was not cooling down at all in fact it was hotting up, and half way through a task I realised that the light was not sparkly – I was seeing stars. The shovel was not heavy – it was my chest that was heavy. The thermometer was reading 104 and I was feeling a bit unwell. The air I was dragging into my lungs was hot. Really hot.
But I was sick of it. I had had it with the heat. I had put off too many jobs for too long because of the heat and that was that. I was going to get this finished. 
By the time I finally let myself go inside I was having trouble walking, I had stopped sweating and my head was pounding. I felt too nauseous even to drink. I lay down in front of a fan and fell completely and immediately asleep. I never thought this would happen to me. I do not succumb to the weather.
When John got home a few hours later he got such a fright to find me lying down in the middle of the afternoon that he poked me to see if I was alive.
I had narrowly avoided sunstroke I think. My body had started to boil. I told you that heat is a great weight loss program. The heat sat at 104 all the rest of the day. It was another very hot day. 
Awake now, I decided to sit down for a wee while to recover and cruise some of my favourite blogs and see what was what. That is when I discovered that I have become invisible. I looked at my weeks numbers. Hundreds of my readers have dissappeared and most of the comments I had been making throughout the week on your pages were not showing. And most of the blogs I am following are no longer showing on the reader or in my email. Am I in your spam folder? Have I dropped off your reader? Have you dropped off mine? Am I really here? Hullo!! Has there been a catastrophe, should I listen to the news? What is happening? Has WordPress got sunstroke too? Ah well. I will find you.
Good morning. I blame my narrow excape from sunstroke on being brought up at the beach. I forget how insidious the humid heat on the prairies really is. Yes, I was wearing my wide brimmed wedding hat. Yes, I had been drinking water. No, I had not gone back inside out of the heat. You know what they say about mad dogs and Englishmen going out in the midday sun. Ah well.
In New Zealand, just outside of a town called Rotorua, is a secret hot pool. Rotorua is known for its geothermal activity, its hot water, mud pools and tourism. This hot pool is not commercial or fancied up, it looks like a big clear deep puddle. It belongs to the locals. To find it you have to drive down some side roads and under bridges, park, then walk a wee way back into the bush. It is a wide warm pool of water. Fed by two streams. One hot and one cold. I used to visit it often when I was driving and I never once saw another person there. I would hang my dress in a tree, leave my sandals on the bank and just walk straight into the water. Early Autumn was the best time for this. At the far end of the pool the two streams enter very close to each other and I discovered that if you floated in the warm water close to where the streams flowed into the pool, holding onto this big rock, that an arm of cold water would curl around your body as you lay floating in the heat.
The sensation of the cold stream moving through the hot stream, delaying its passage for just a moment as it washed over your shoulders and down to your waist and away, is so hard to describe. I have tried for years to find the right words. The water became animate in a way. If you were able to colour the streams then you would watch a transparent deep teal column of colour swirl in. Flicking its bluegreen tail like a fat eel, mixing the colours for a moment. I used to say it was a welcome chill from the embrace of a long dead lover. Someone you miss terribly and always will. Their touch makes you flinch it is so cold and so incongruous and from another world but you want to feel it just a little longer. My skin shivers at the memory.
Yesterday in the evening I felt a cool stream of air, just like this cold water. It sliced cleanly in through the heat, brushing up against my overheated body, then moving past, followed by more and then more. The stream of cool air widened as it gathered confidence. I stood on the verandah in the dark and breathed in the blessed coolness like a starving woman. Then I walked around the house opening all the windows and doors and positioning the fans to suck more of this glorious bluegreen air into the house.
Today I will finish those tasks I started yesterday. You have a lovely day. You can Leave your Hat on, but come in out of the beating sun if it is still at your place.
Please check your spam folder and see if I am in there. Set me free.
celi
Today.. a year ago.. the bees swarm. This was my second post ever. Not destined for the book I think. But well worth checking out if you are interested in capturing a swarm of bees.
The Kitchen's Garden 
148 responses to “I never thought it would happen to me”
Don’t you ever do something like that again! High heat and humidity is nothing to play around with. It was 101 here yesterday and just going from walking from the car to inside the grocers I got such a headache. And that was just from being out a couple of minutes. Pace, water, rest, pace. t
Yes Mum!!
I am still here, in Angus, Scotland. We are having the most dreadful summer, but not quite as bad as the folk down in England; where everyone has gone mad today. There is a chance that a plucky Brit has a chance to win Wimbledon. The fact that he is a rather grumpy Scot doesn’t enamour him to the English, but they do tend to clutch at straws. Do take care in the heat. Frances.
Well don’t get lost up there Frances!. Though it sounds like you are best out of the furore in Wimbledon anyway! have a lovely day!
wow…that was a close call. if i laid down in the middle of the day my family would think i was dead too! it was 106 here yesterday and i forbade my husband and sun to go to the baseball game. they were not happy but too bad. someone around here has to have some common sense! i know that feeling of the water so well. when i was small we had a plastic pool. it would get very warm on hot days and my father would place the hose in the pool to add cold water. i loved the way the cold water felt pouring over me surrounded by the hot water. take it easy today! we are supposed to be cooler today but it sure did not happen. it is like a hot wall of water when you walk out the door. i have you on my sidebar so you have not disappeared from me!
That must have been a wonderful sensation for you to remember it so well! c
You must be careful, Celi! It sounds like a migraine to me? I am still receiving your post notifications!
I have never had migraines, in fact i am never sick with anything much.. but who knows, better now anyway! c
I have not lost you to the spam section. You were right in the proper spot of my inbox!!! That’s a LOT of hard work to do extra on top of everything else on a good day, let alone these dreaded hot ones! Hopefully today you won’t become sick by finishing it up! I was at my mom’s the day before yesterday when it was one of the hottest days this yr with terrible humidity, and I was putting together a gazebo and a patio table.. so I can’t be one to talk lol.
I hope you got to sit under the gazebo once it was finished!! morning asley. c
I left a message yesterday that I found some of your comments in my spam. Judith was also in my spam. WP does some crazy things lately!
It was your site that aggravated me the most yesterday as I am enjoying your new series! And my comments on Judiths site have not appeared over there at all.. I would love to connect with her.. ah well.. lovely to see you.. c
I hate to assume it is all WP but….Judith left me a message she would like to connect with you…will see what I can do!
I was able to leave a message on her blog this morning, so she must have found me in the spam can.. thank you fro that chris! c
Glad to hear it..uh I mean see it! I think you both would hit it offmweel!
Glad to hear it..uh I mean see it! I think you both would hit it off well!
Still reading here too! Geez, Ceci, please, please, take care in this heat. I’m reading that the heat is supposed to let up a little starting today. I hope it’s true for you and your poor animals. Enough is enough!! We wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you! My sister lives in Idaho where there are lots of thermal springs. When we go there, a favorite place we visit is Bonneville Hot Springs near Stanley, Idaho. It’s a hike into the woods, a very beautiful, natural setting where the hot sulfurous water comes bubbling up right out of the ground. You enter the stream into hot water that’s tempered by a nearby running stream. People place rocks to channel the hot water into little pools where there are rock shelves to sit on. You can move a rock to let in more cool water, or swim to places where the hot and cold mix. It is heavenly! And the feeling is just as you describe.
That place sounds great, esp lifting a rock to let a little cold in, it must be very hot.. Hot water coming out of the ground is such a fantastic notion.. it must have thrilled many a wagon load of dirty pioneers! c
No spam here…every post coming daily. Just starting to get into a heat spell here too so I will keep your experience in mind. No mid day weeding!!
No.. which reminds me i should do some weeding! c
I hope for your and your critters sake it; you have a cool spell. Our heat broke yesterday it was 60 last night. Perfect sleeping weather. Do take good care.
One of your comments went to my junk folder; most comments are OK though…
J
ah 60.. lovely! c
C, how concerning that the heat “attacked” you so! Hope you have a better and cooler day today.
Thankfully you have not been in spam folder although some of my other regular commenters have been so I wonder if there is something going on with WordPress at the moment…
🙂 Mandy xo
Having said that i need to check my spam more regularly too! c
Glad your feeling better! Yesterday it was 101F here, but we had a slight breeze. I got into our pool (which I never do until he end of aug), so at least I cooled down. I too think that wordpress and facebook haven’t been sending me the blog posts, it’s as if they’re messing with us again! Take it a little easier today!!!
Morning wifey, the pool is wonderful when it is really hot! good for you.. c
Yes, I do believe you dogged a bullet. You will not be able to work has hard today, but will recover. Thank heavens. I think all of us would miss Our “Ce” most terribly. Our cooler weather is leaving today, with most of it gone tomorrow, then we are back to the heat.
I guess it is heading your way…good. It’s nice to share.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
Thank you for sharing too, today is a gorgeous day but i have given myself a day off from any extras! c
Well, it there’s one thing you can take away from this – aside from being more mindful of the heat — is how much people care about you. Our temps will be “normal” all week long. Use today for a little R&R, once the animals have been tended.
Others have had spam folder problems, much like yours, so I check my folder regularly. I’ve yet to find you there. If I ever do, I just might keep you in there for an hour or 2 to make sure you get a little rest. 🙂
Have a great day, Celi!
I think a lot of people are on or going on holiday around this time and America has just had a quiet week. Google and Hotmail do have a bad habit of deciding that email should be reclassified as spam sometimes 😦
This English Mad Dog knows better than to go out in the midday sun – take care Cecilia 😉
My goodness, your writing can be so … so sensual … Yikes! I could just imagine that cool swirl of bluegreen … azur … water swirling around you … Well, I’m still here and I’ve got you on Facebook, too. If I lost your blog, I would surely keep searching for you!! Love your blog! And you take it cautious today in the heat … heat stroke is nothing to mess with … don’t ignore how you are feeling!! Love you …