Hotter than hell

Oh look, a photo of Antalya in late June! Seriously, I know I was strangely absent yesterday from everywhere, but it simply couldn’t be helped. It got up to 46 here yesterday (115 in old money); friends up the road in Side reported a local high of 50 (122F). Today I only showed a high of 44, but the same friends in Side said that it topped out at 51 there.

Basically the situation we’ve got here is that even inside the house, it has become too hot to run electronics for any length of time. Today when the sun was out I was able to have the computer on for about five minutes at a time before things started acting… not happy. Pointing the fan directly at the machine doesn’t help much, because at the moment sitting in front of that fan is akin to sitting in front of a hair dryer. Now that the sun has gone down, though, I thought I’d take a chance and let you know I’m still alive. Melting, but still alive.

We’re thinking that if this keeps up for any length of time, we might have to break down and get an air conditioner for our bedroom. I’ve been looking at 15-day forecasts for this area, and although the predictions are that this unbearable heat is temporary (as is everything else), I trust weather forecasts about as far as I can throw them. I think the plan is to wait a few days and see. I’ve priced up a few budget air conditioning units, and they’re not so expensive. The real problem is the electricity. The power in our neighbourhood went out no fewer than seven times today, no doubt due to the fact that more and more people are using air conditioners, and the power required is too much for the grid to handle. So do we want to add to that problem? And do we want sky-high electricity bills?

On the other hand, do I want to end up in the hospital from heat exaustion? I already had some problems with delirium today, trying to nap while drifting between dreams and consciousness and confusing the two. At one point a dream spilled over into real life and through the waves of heat I woke up and thought one of my housemates was some guy the police department had sent around to install an air conditioner for us. That’s how bad it’s getting. I’ve brought my blood sugar up a bit since then, though, and I’m feeling much more coherent now. A couple of ice-cold showers have helped, too.

I kind of preferred the part where I thought we were getting air conditioning, though. It was the one time today I was happy.