Hot enough?

As we continue to bask in our little heat wave it's perhaps worth remembering how to stay cool in the house. Those who know about such things as weather are intimating that we might - this year - have a warm summer, if the Jetstream, El Nino and butterflies in the Azores behave themselves, that is. Trouble is, young kids and older folk don't cope with the excessive heat too well. So how do we keep the house cool?

Interestingly, closing all the windows isn't the first thing that comes to mind but when the weather becomes seriously hot that's what you need to do. The consumers' association recommends the following:

• Open windows upstairs over night to allow the house to lose the warmth and warm air.
• As it starts to heat up - say, about 1200, close all your windows
• Draw the curtains on the sunward sides
  
• Buy a fan. They're incredibly cheap - about £15.00 - and well worth the money in a heat wave. It doesn't matter that they only blow the warm air in the house over you; the effect of this is to cool you - 'onest!
• Don't cook hot food. Every time you use anything which produces heat, that heat has to go somewhere and that 'somewhere' is usually upwards - to the bedrooms.
  
• Drink lots of cold water. Fill two very large jugs with water and stick 'em in the 'fridge the night before. Why two? Because one is always cooling down whilst the other is always cold.
• Don't fall for the old wives tale that drinking hot tea cools you down. It doesn't. It makes you sweat, however, and that means losing even more body fluid than you will during the heat. Those old wives, eh...

Finally, spare a thought for anyone who's living on their own, who's elderly and who might not be able to cope.