"nightjar .uk.com" nightjar@insert my surname here wrote in message
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"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
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Natal, wand the low veldt, was insufferable without aircon at much over
30C.

We didn't have aircon, so we suffered. If you are tired enough, you
sleep....

That is not the point of a holiday home that you visit for a few days at a
time. You don't go there to feel constantly tired.

So the aircon is for comfort and not necessity.

Mary

"Peter Ashby" wrote in message
uk...
Malcolm Stewart wrote:


(And during the winter of 1947, I remember wearing finger mittens when
doing
my piano practise. Frequent frozen pipes in the poorly heated semi.)

might it perhaps have also been poorly insulated and draught proofed?

Peter

In the '40s such luxuries were very uncommon.

Yet we survived :-)

Mary

"Peter Ashby" wrote in message
uk...
Malcolm Stewart wrote:


There is also the matter of acclimitisation, perhaps you have simply not
perseverd enough. there is also the matter of it not being healthy to go
between environments too different in temperature. This is especially
important for elderly people in winter as the constriction of peripheral
blood vessels on stepping out into cold air from a too warm house can
cause heart attacks and strokes.

I suggest that many elderly people are more sensible than younger ones and
that they KNOW you don't go out in the cold without 'wrapping up'. We were
taught it as children.

Mary

Mary Fisher wrote:
"nightjar .uk.com" nightjar@insert my surname here wrote in message
...
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
....
Natal, wand the low veldt, was insufferable without aircon at much over
30C.

We didn't have aircon, so we suffered. If you are tired enough, you
sleep....
That is not the point of a holiday home that you visit for a few days at a
time. You don't go there to feel constantly tired.

So the aircon is for comfort and not necessity.

Mary

Its a good acclimatisation thing.

After a while you get used to the heat. But when you arrive, full of N.
European busyness, it takes a week or so to acquire that 'Manana is too
keen' approach.

You can tell an old Colonial by the way the arms are held away from the
body, to minimise staining of the safari suit, the legs apart slightly
to minimise sweaty ********, and the overall pace is measured but
unhurried, to reduce unnecessary heat generation, and all conversations
take place at or after sundown, and are preceded by an iced Gin and
Tonic, to keep the malaria at bay.

You cannot be frenetic in 35C temperatures.

PERSONALLY I have a very happy memory of sitting on a ramada in
Andalusia somewhere, in 40C heat, spending the afternoon sipping iced
drinks and grapes and melons...and watching the heat haze boiling off
the dry dust..Aircon would ave made it just a remote bit of suburbia.

If I wanted to be cool on holiday, I wouldn't personally go to the S of
France in August. I'd go to bloody Norway.

Comfort and the local experience may well be incompatible things.

I remember a hugely amusing experience with an ex..she wanted to have a
'holidya' I suggested Africa.

We got on a plane at Heathrow, at 9pm. 10 am the next day we were
picking up a hire car in Johhanesburg.

2pm we were finishing a strange lunch in an Afrikaans establishment
somewhere deep in the bush.

6pm we were looking for a place to say even deeper in the bush. We found
a cabin in the middle of a swamp.

12pm we were finishing off a massive steak with the cicadas chirping and
washing it down with excellent whisky.

12pm we were heading back to the swamp ****ed as newts down an unlit
dirt road. Pitch black., No lights anywhere.

12 am the following day we were sitting on a hilltop watching herds of
Kudu, some hippos and some crocodiles.

Having nearly run over a family of warthogs, been given a baleful glance
by a couple of white Rhino, and had to stop while a giraffe ambled out
of the way. About the *only* time I can remember her rendered speechless..

Aircon would have simply made it less of an impact. Africa is all about
heat, dust, smells and animals.

You don't go there for civilisation. You go there to get away from it.

Aircon is for doing business ..to live somewhere you should adapt.

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
. net...

"nightjar .uk.com" nightjar@insert my surname here wrote in message
...

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
....
Natal, wand the low veldt, was insufferable without aircon at much over
30C.

We didn't have aircon, so we suffered. If you are tired enough, you
sleep....

That is not the point of a holiday home that you visit for a few days at
a time. You don't go there to feel constantly tired.

So the aircon is for comfort and not necessity.

I need comfort :-)

Colin Bignell