We started our first day in London with an historic 40 degree Celsius. We arrived on time to Gatwick airport but the ground crew was delayed. We cleared customs with no problem and got my bag. We were lucky that we only had an afternoons worth of 40 degree heat to contend with. Today’s temperature (Wednesday the 20th) has calmed down significantly to a reasonable 22 Celsius. 

Our trip from the airport to our eccentric Airbnb had us taking 4 trains. Even the underground trains were uncomfortably hot. When they emerged to the sun light they got worse. At one point we switched to the an above ground Bakerloo line. The handrails were almost too hot to touch. The trains were also delayed and purposefully slowed down because of the heat. 

The walk to the Airbnb was around 750 meters in the hot hot sun. We had filled up with water but the heat was inescapable. Even resting in the shade proved useless. Our Airbnb check-in was supposed to be at 1 pm. Patrik, our Airbnb host, graciously welcomed us at 3 pm. The upstairs room we have was un comfortable until it rained a little at 6 pm. That cooled the outside air and an allowed the room to cool.

We forced ourselves to stay up until 8 pm to fight the jet lag. We tried watching Victorian Farm episode 1. I am sure that I nodded off about a dozen time. Thankfully Desmond helped me to stay awake. Once we were snuggled up to sleep I think we averaged about 6 hours all together. 

We kept the window open overnight so the temperature in the room slowly dropped. It is now hovering around 22℃. Unfortunately today, Wednesday July 20th, is garbage day in our area. This brought the unwelcome sounds hydraulic hissing and diesel engine starts and stop at 6:30 am. Once the truck came closer you could smell its payload. I think the odour did more to wake me up than the sounds.

We ate a light breakfast with yogurt, fruit, and bread and are now resting in our room. The yogurt did not agree with one of us! It is now 9:30 am and some of us are having naps to recover from bad sleeps and storing up our energy for a light day in London.

We’re hoping to go to the Tate museum today and to Evensong at Westminster Abbey. We also need to stock up on food. Resting and just going slow are the order of the day.