WE'RE HAVING A HEATWAVE... BY SANDRA HARRIS.

WE’RE HAVING A HEATWAVE…

BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

I know I’m going to come across as grumpy and ungrateful now but I’m really not enjoying this heatwave. Ah, don’t be such an auld buzzkill, you might say. Surely be to God you’re happy for the first daycent (Oirish pronunciation) bit of sunshine we’ve had all year, you might say.

Surely you don’t begrudge people a bit of relief from the unrelenting misery that’s been 2026 so far, with constant wars, spiralling grocery and electricity prices and the general breakdown of society that seemed to start with bloody COVID and will surely end with an apocalyptic style flood/earthquake/tsunami that sets us back about a bazillion years and forces us all into a hard reset for mankind, you might say.

Well, of course I don’t begrudge people a bit of relief from the unrelenting misery that’s been 2026 so far, etc., etc. I know kids have been having a ball with their paddling pools, ice-creams and spontaneous, unscheduled trips to the beach instead of doing homework.

I know too that adults are loving playing hookey from work to sit in the beer-garden caressing an ice-cold pint of Orchards Thieves or Bulmers cider and wondering if the woman in the pale blue sundress is giving you the eye or does she just have some kind of a mad twitch or what.

But the thing is, right, I’m Irish, see, and we’re not really able for this level of heat. Mind you, I’m glad I’m not in the UK, which I believe is even hotter than here, with temperatures up to forty degrees and maybe even beyond. On the continent of Europe, it’s pretty bad too, the kind of weather that can prove fatal by inducing heart attacks or strokes in elderly or otherwise vulnerable people.

On a personal level, I haven’t slept since this whole thing started about five days ago, so I’m as cranky as a bear with a sore head. The night-time temperatures seem to be pretty much the same as the day-time ones so I doubt if anyone’s getting much kip. If you open the window in your bedroom, flies and other winged pests come in but if you leave it shut, you could be found immolated in your bed the next day.

My eyeliner melts on my face when I try to apply it. I’m spending a fortune on sunscreen, ice-cream and cold drinks. I’m mostly too tired and unfocused to write so I’ve wasted hours pointlessly scrolling on social media. I’ve gone down so many Internet rabbit holes I’m applying to change my name to Flopsy Q. Bunnikins by deed poll when everything re-opens after the weekend.

One of the weirdest rabbit holes was on Spotify. This nice Chinese influencer chap called Wonny posts about Chinese women having the most horrific cosmetic surgery done on their faces so they can keep up with current ‘trends.’ Current trends in faces…? Trends in fashion, yes, those are fine. Choosing to wear dungarees or culottes are not exactly dangerous and irreversible choices, even if they show you up as a bit of a lamewad.

But going to a beauty parlour- a fucking beauty parlour- to have a hole drilled in your skull, your actual skull, so they can insert bone cement that will set and give you a pointy alien-looking skull because why? Because having a high, pointy-looking skull makes your face look younger. I was absolutely appalled. I’d never seen anything so mental. How is that even legal…?

But a youthful-looking face seems to be something for which these women will take the most ridiculous risks with their health and bodies. In search of a youthful-looking face, one women injected her own skull with fifty-one syringes of hyaluronic acid, wrapped her head up in bandages for a few days or weeks, I forget which, then unrolled herself only to find that half the hair on her head was gone for good.

Then there are the women who undergo painful and risky plastic surgery in order to achieve the huge, fairy-like eyes of an anime character, or lips that are moulded into a permanent smile so the owner will look more ‘approachable.’

Another horrific procedure involves planing down adult female teeth to look like baby teeth, because everyone knows that babies are cute and youthful-looking, right…? Dear God in heaven. What is actually wrong with these people? These are almost all permanent and irreversible changes to people’s faces.

One woman has had so much surgery she’s now suffering from severe memory loss. What will happen to these women’s faces when old age takes its toll, as it inevitably does? What will happen to their mental health when they realise that, sooner or later, everyone grows old…? Thanks, Wonny, for some seriously memorable nightmare fodder…

Two things are keeping me going right now. One, Love Island on the telly. Nothing takes your mind off your troubles quicker than a bunch of fame-hungry, near-naked wanna-bees making tits and twats of themselves for fifty grand in prize money and the chance to be a Z-list celebrity for five minutes. Yes, of course I’m jealous, lol.

Two, the little flock of pigeons that use our city-centre balcony as a drop-in centre during the day. We have one couple nesting here at the moment. For the last two weeks, a mammy pigeon and a daddy pigeon have been taking turns sitting on two perfect little eggs that are due to hatch any time now. We’ve never been so close to seeing an actual miracle of nature about to happen in such glorious Technicolor. It almost makes up for this poxy heat…