Hot nights

It's been as hot as hades today, with the temperature on the Wimbledon Court up above 35 degrees. A ball boy fainted whilst the players rushed around regardless and the spectators visibly melt into their seats whilst they scoff their strawberries and cream.
It's a funny old thing this hot weather we love to go on holiday to places that serve it up, day in day out and even though we know the dangers, like the Noal Coward song "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun" we are gluttons for punishment.
The first time I got badly sun-burnt was when I cycled down to the South of France and having arrived at the camp site on the coast, spent the day lounging by the pool. Long before society educated us on the dangers of too much sun we had turned ourselves into beetroot coloured, shivering wretches. Not many years later I would turn my hand to "cooking" or rather "frying" on the sun deck of P&Os Oriana, coating myself with Brylcream in an attempt to get a loverly light brown tan, the very antithesis of the sun screens used today.
Hot days and hot nights, the scalded skin sung out its anguish but there was more at stake than a bit of discomfort.  The girls wouldn't give a white skinned Pommy a second look and so one tried to speed things up with the Brylcream. A voyage to Aussie from Cape Town was only a couple of weeks, no time to loose and not much time to score !!
Hot nights and Mosquito's. I remember them well as you laid in bed, sweating away, afraid to expose too much flesh for fear of the mossie, listening for his whine, switch on the light, where the hell did he go, switch off the light and within seconds he was airborne again. The joy of tropical living.
Tonight it's hot, there shouldn't be any but just in case I will leave the light on !!!