Last week, Europe experienced an intense heat wave where several cities, including Clermont Ferrand, experienced the hottest day on record.  We had several days that were between 103-105 degrees.  Most schools are not equipped to handle these high temperatures (if they are, they just have a fan in the classroom) so some closed while others advised parents that they could keep their children home.  The ones that were open were spraying the kids with water during recess, and giving them lots of water to drink throughout the day.  Some events were even canceled because of the high temperatures.

Air conditioning is a rare commodity in Europe, so this made for very uncomfortable and even dangerous conditions.  Most apartments have metal shutters which thankfully reduce the amount of sun and heat that come into the apartment.

Normally in the summer we will leave all of our windows and shutters open at night and then close them during the day.  I’ll usually close them around 9-10am and also close our blackout curtains.  While it helps with the heat, I hate living in a dark apartment all day!  During the heat wave, the temperatures didn’t cool down much at night, so after the first couple days this method didn’t really help.

We did put the kiddie pool to good use, and set it up on the balcony where we could put our feet in it to cool down.

We have a portable A/C unit that helps ever so slightly.  We have to fill it with water and stick a hose out of a door or window.  In order to try and cool down our kitchen/living area, we have to put the A/C where the doors to the balcony are….so once we put the hose out the door we then have to put a bungee cord around the 2 door handles to keep the open door as closed as possible.  Then we use a combination of styrofoam, pillows and blankets to block the open space around the door.  It’s quite a setup (and a job)!  Being that the space we are trying to cool down is pretty large, it doesn’t get much cooler in here but it does help take the edge off.

Oh and I should mention that Makenna’s dance recital was during the heat wave….in a gymnasium that of course was not air conditioned.  We got through it but it was pretty brutal!

Another side effect of the summer weather is that mosquitos become a problem.  The windows don’t have screens, so while we have to keep the windows open at night to let the cooler air in we are getting bit by mosquitos.  This year I decided to put a mosquito net around our bed which hasn’t been too effective.  Today I bought wall plug-ins that are supposed to repel mosquitos….wish us luck!