This European heatwave has been going on for weeks and shows no signs of abating. It’s really wearing me down. Any tips for staying cool when you don’t have air conditioning? I’ve tried the whole shutting the windows and blinds thing they recommend but that just makes it worse. I already feel uncomfortably hot at the best of times as a side effect of my medication. So an actual heatwave on top is literal torture. It’s so bad in the UK that supermarket refrigerators have stopped working due to the heat, and the news says its going to be the longest heatwave in 50 years.
I think the best thing that you can really do without having more resources is stuff like evaporative/swamp coolers (which only work at certain relative humidities, but they might work for you. Basically evaporation cools everything the same way your sweat cools you. But if sweat isn’t cooling you bc humidity, they don’t work either) or things like putting frozen bottles/etc in front of fans, cool water sprayed as a mist, etc
I wish I had better advice but I don’t. Wet bulb events terrify me. I wish we could get you at least a portable air conditioner, but Iirc you still need donations for a washing machine and I just know everybody’s resources are very limited :/
They actually came through with the washing machine, but now the oven is broken, so I guess that’s priority no 1 right now.
Thank god Im so happy for you. I feel like a huge asshole/like i’m just pretending to have solidarity when i waste money on all kinds of shit and then never have any to contribute to others, but I started crying next to my partner when I read that post. I’ve read a lot of your posts and I hate how hard things have been for you and I’m seriously so happy that you got that taken care of. It sucks that now your oven needs fixing but still, at least you got something fixed.
Depending on how much it costs to fix the oven, you could maybe look into an air fryer or other countertop convection oven to cook with in the meantime? I don’t know if free returns are handled any differently in the UK but if you’ve got a bit of $$$ maybe you could get something on Amazon, then return it before the return window is up?
It’s just a small electrical fault apparently, the engineer quoted £160, and long-term it will need doing anyway. I just feel kind of numb about everything because life just feels like a neverending volley of challenges that are technically small yet impossible for me to overcome without help. CS Lewis wrote in his book The Screwtape Letters that the way to break a human’s spirit is to give them endless small challenges and frustrations and he’s absolutely right.
I don’t actually have any cash at all to get anything so i don’t think I can get an air fryer but thanks for the suggestion.
Yeah that’s what i kinda expected since you only just got the washer fixed, but still, something to keep in mind in case you manage to get some more donations together :/
I wish I could help but i basically have nothing right now and live on the endless grace of my partner who is starting a job that pays 70% of her former wage
Everyone’s hard up and it seems like it’s only going to get worse.
What do you have at the moment to mitigate the heat? Do you have fans?
Do make a mutual aid post about it too if you just have the spoons.
Your situation is very much on my mind also and I wish I could help more, but just remember that you did not choose any of this and are worthy of aid, support and solidarity always. But I understand how hard it must be to have to keep doing that.
Sink the TERF island ruling class, it’s disgusting how people are treated there.
Thank you. We do have fans at least. I’ve got a mutual aid post going for an oven repair right now, no responses yet. I often fantasise about the ruling class getting the French or Russian treatment. Those people even haunt my dreams. I’ve had a dream about Rachel Reeves screaming at me and one about Boris Johnson telling me to get off benefits and back into work.
That is good, the fans I mean.
Solidarity with the dreams. I’ve not had the actual ghouls manifest in my dreams, but did have nightmares about the letters I got from my local national insurance that tried its hardest to make me and my tiny family homeless when we were poorer, for many years straight. It’s exhausting and so stressful.
It’s become clear to me that life is designed to be exhausting and stressful. We aren’t even meant to enjoy it, it’s just an endurance challenge.
I really hope that a day comes when you no longer have to feel like this.
It won’t, it’s only going to get worse. The doctors say i’m at high risk of having another, worse, stroke. They cut my medication down to try and make it less likely but this means there’s now a higher chance of the cancer coming back. Although mutual aid keeps my hunger pangs away i am very slowly dying of malnutrition as my cancer treatment has given me so many food intolerances and allergies, there are just a few things i can eat without becoming violently ill. Can’t even tolerate supplements any more. The NHS dietician says there is nothing that can be done about it. And I’ll always be struggling to keep my disability benefits. I’ll always have the stress and anxiety of having to beg for help on mutual aid. There is no hope of anything except death one day.
I’m so sorry.