Just call me the clawbster
For yes, my skill colour is a rather hot and bothered red, very unlike my normal pallor.
This week-end had been planned for a while, and it was to go up to my parental in-law's cabin on Lake Winnipeg and just chill with them, a brother- and sister-in-law and our two nieces. Little did we know that nature would have record temperatures and humidex waiting for us. And though the cabin is very nice it is missing that one thing that I would've loved this week-end... any form of air conditioning!
I spent a little time outside with my mother-in-law helping to install some wired lighting they had picked up for their extensive flower gardens, and even in the shade it was getting pretty toasty.
To help with the heat we went down to the lake for a swim. The water was great, and it felt wonderful to go swimming again. Back in the day I had worked myself through the Red Cross swim program to the end of Life Saving III, and really enjoyed being in the water. In fact, swimming lessons were how I spent a lot of my summers growing up... going down to the river in my home town and braving the cold morning water; the higher you got in the ranks the earlier your start times got so that they didn't freeze the little kids to death. Running water just never seems to warm up like the lake does. The unfortunate bit is that as time went I seemed to run into more and more troubles with the chlorine in public pools... this was never an issue in the river of course, but in the city it puts a huge damper on things.
But the lake, ah, the lake... I had forgotten how good it was to get in the water again. What I had also forgotten was to take proper preventative measures and so both viridis_ama and I developed some lovely new skin colours. I obviously stayed submersed a bit more than Virids_ama did, but in the end we both came back with some pretty good burns. Though I didn't burn as badly as Viridis_ama, I do seem to get a bit of a heat rash as well, instead. But it's tolerable and a reminder to be a bit more smart in the sun.
We packed all the pets and our gear back into the car around noon on Sunday and came back to the city.
I may not have mentioned it earlier, but today is actually our second wedding anniversary, so we have been scattering "little" fun things across the week-end. Friday night we went for supper at Mise, and to round things out on Sunday I took Viridis_ama to see the final Harry Potter film. If you like food you should try Mise. If you like Harry Potter you should definitely see the last movie; it could perhaps be one of the most well done movies of the series. If you like both you should take the cast of Harry Potter to Mise. If you don't like either you're probably just a very angry individual, but that's not my issue.
As good as the cabin is, it's definitely nice to be back in air-conditioning land, even if hydro is asking folks to reduce consumption due to a substation fault in my neighbourhood. Even if I raise the temperature a few degrees in the house it is still much more tolerable than being outside.
Plant shut-down officially started today, though I'm working the first week to keep some holidays available for our vacation in September. The nice thing is that it's quiet. The "bad" thing is that I'll need to be more self-directed... which can be good at times, and other times... not so much!
This week-end had been planned for a while, and it was to go up to my parental in-law's cabin on Lake Winnipeg and just chill with them, a brother- and sister-in-law and our two nieces. Little did we know that nature would have record temperatures and humidex waiting for us. And though the cabin is very nice it is missing that one thing that I would've loved this week-end... any form of air conditioning!
I spent a little time outside with my mother-in-law helping to install some wired lighting they had picked up for their extensive flower gardens, and even in the shade it was getting pretty toasty.
To help with the heat we went down to the lake for a swim. The water was great, and it felt wonderful to go swimming again. Back in the day I had worked myself through the Red Cross swim program to the end of Life Saving III, and really enjoyed being in the water. In fact, swimming lessons were how I spent a lot of my summers growing up... going down to the river in my home town and braving the cold morning water; the higher you got in the ranks the earlier your start times got so that they didn't freeze the little kids to death. Running water just never seems to warm up like the lake does. The unfortunate bit is that as time went I seemed to run into more and more troubles with the chlorine in public pools... this was never an issue in the river of course, but in the city it puts a huge damper on things.
But the lake, ah, the lake... I had forgotten how good it was to get in the water again. What I had also forgotten was to take proper preventative measures and so both viridis_ama and I developed some lovely new skin colours. I obviously stayed submersed a bit more than Virids_ama did, but in the end we both came back with some pretty good burns. Though I didn't burn as badly as Viridis_ama, I do seem to get a bit of a heat rash as well, instead. But it's tolerable and a reminder to be a bit more smart in the sun.
We packed all the pets and our gear back into the car around noon on Sunday and came back to the city.
I may not have mentioned it earlier, but today is actually our second wedding anniversary, so we have been scattering "little" fun things across the week-end. Friday night we went for supper at Mise, and to round things out on Sunday I took Viridis_ama to see the final Harry Potter film. If you like food you should try Mise. If you like Harry Potter you should definitely see the last movie; it could perhaps be one of the most well done movies of the series. If you like both you should take the cast of Harry Potter to Mise. If you don't like either you're probably just a very angry individual, but that's not my issue.
As good as the cabin is, it's definitely nice to be back in air-conditioning land, even if hydro is asking folks to reduce consumption due to a substation fault in my neighbourhood. Even if I raise the temperature a few degrees in the house it is still much more tolerable than being outside.
Plant shut-down officially started today, though I'm working the first week to keep some holidays available for our vacation in September. The nice thing is that it's quiet. The "bad" thing is that I'll need to be more self-directed... which can be good at times, and other times... not so much!