What do you do to survive a heatwave? Drink coffee of course!

What a strange week we have had so far! On Monday the temperature reached 36C here in Toowoomba but I wasn't here to endure enjoy the heat as a friend and I travelled to Warwick to say goodbye to an old friend who was heading overseas so I escaped Toowoomba only to spend the day in 38C heat!!! Well, what was one to do to survive such extreme weather conditions...find an airconditioned cafe and just sit and drink coffee!

We met up at the Belle Vue Cafe in Palmerin Street (the main drag as it used to be called). This cafe has been around forever and we used to frequent it when we were teenagers during the bodgies and widgies period and there were drinks such as 'Bodgies Blood' on the menu. Bodgies Blood was a 1960's favourite drink which was a 'spider' made with cola and a couple of scoops of ice cream. We were very wild in those days :-) 

The decor at the Belle Vue Cafe is much the same as when I was a teenager and I am sure that I would have sat on those retro chairs back then although if they are the same ones they have certainly stood the test of time. After chatting for a couple of hours it was time for lunch so we gingerly headed outside into a very hot 38 degrees and quickly walked a couple of doors up to an airconditioned hotel for a counter lunch of fish and salad. When we were all talked out and had said our goodbyes to our friend for what may be three years or so, we headed home in an airconditioned car to a much cooler Toowoomba which had just had a short storm pass through. You can't beat the aircon during a heatwave. However, we just make do with fans in our house and it gets very hot.

 

Our house was like an oven and after I opened up every window and door to allow the cooler air to come inside I noticed a package sitting on the table and was pleasantly surprised to see it was my Down to Earth forum swap parcel. Sue had sent me a couple of beautifully embroidered birds for the Christmas tree, a teapot cosy with a couple of special tea bags and a lovely Friendship calendar. We have a number of swaps a year and it is always a nice surprise seeing what all the swap partners come up with. Everyone who wants to can join in whether they are particularly clever at craftwork or not.  

 Then it was time to venture outside to see if there had been any damage to the vegetables during the searing heat and I noticed that the beetroot which was near one of the Ollas was looking much happier ....

....than the beetroot which was at the end of the patch. So I promptly dug in another Olla around that area to provide water to the roots during the heat of the day.

I checked the guinea pigs as they had been in the shade all day but poor old Coco was really feeling the heat as she has longer hair than some of the other guinea pigs.

Yesterday it was supposed to be cooler but ended up reaching 35C so the mulberry ice cream I was going to make didn't happen as the kitchen was just too hot and even the outside of the fridge felt hot to the touch. It didn't help that someone who couldn't find any milk the night before decided to drink the cream I had bought to make the ice cream.

Talking about mulberries, Shiralee from Vintage Napery commented in my post It's Mulberry Season! that you can make ink from mulberries so I asked Mr.Google about that and found this article Making Ink From Berries if anyone would like to give it a try.

Next week my son and I head off to the beach while the CEO holds the fort and looks after the wildlife (and hopefully my vegetables) and I am so pleased that the day we travel the temps will be back to normal and ten to twelve degrees less than it has been this week.

Whatever happened to the nice cool Spring weather we used to have? How has Spring been where you live if you are in Australia and is your Autumn (Fall)  'normal' for readers in the Northern Hemisphere. I'm a bit over this heat and summer hasn't even arrived yet!