Heat

It has been somewhat hot in my neck of the woods these past few days. Not that I’m particularly bothered by it. I like the feel of the sun on my skin. It makes me calm and content. Sometimes I get a little drunk on it.

I try very hard not to use the air-conditioning in my house. But, if there is no cool change in the evening I succumb. The heavy hot air hovering over my bed makes for an unpleasant night when combined with the hot flushes that many women of my age must tolerate.

The theme song for these hot summer days comes courtesy of Pucho and the Latin Soul Brothers and their aptly named song Heat. Have you heard it?

The accompanying beverage ought to be a mojito, but I’ve been sticking with my home brewed kombucha and jun. For a bit of added excitement, I throw in an occasional Frosty Fruit and vanilla Paddle Pop. Yes, I’m a big kid at heart.

My family have been fans of Frosty Fruits since the 1970s. We used to have a holiday house way down south on the Mornington Peninsula, just a short stroll from the beach. During the end of year school holidays, we spent every day at the beach. On the slow walk home, after exhausting ourselves swimming and paddleboarding, we’d stop in at the local milk bar. It had industrial-strength air-conditioning and a polished concrete floor. I didn’t care if the queue to buy a Frosty Fruit was a long one. It meant I could linger in bare feet on the cold floor before heading back to our old fibro holiday house with no air-conditioning.

I still live near the beach, not the same one, another one. Another beach equally as beautiful as the one where I spent childhood summers. It’s at the end of my street. A short 5 minute walk, across some train tracks and there I am. But in this heat, pushing way past 40 degrees Celsius, it is – strangely enough – too hot for the beach. So I stay at home, listening to Pucho and his hermanos, sipping homebrew, eating Frosty Fruits and I think about how hardy we were as kids with no air-conditioning in the house, nor car. We were only a Frosty Fruit and a beach away from being cool.