Hmmm. Can't really blame her for this expression. The rain was coming down sideways and she had to stand there for 90 minutes watching drenched people sail past in vessels large and small. There were two chairs behind her and her husband, Prince Philip, but I didn't catch them taking a quick rest even once. It's no wonder the poor man ended up hospitalized with a bladder infection.
Contrast this to what was going on in Illinois, (where I live) in June. Apparently it was the dryest June on record and there is a fairly serious drought going on in the south of the state, where the farms are. The entire US is currently under a heat advisory, and when there's a heat advisory during an American summer, you know it's hot. Yesterday in Chicago, we reached 103 Fahrenheit (39.4 Celsius) and apparently it's going up even higher today. Coupled with about 95% humidity here, it's not very pleasant and you tend to stay indoors in the cool of the air-conditioning.
Unless you happen to have a power cut (or outage, as they say here) which is also happening in various parts of the country. See, summer in the USA not only brings excessive heat, but thunderstorms too. These storms inevitably bring trees down, and the trees fall on power lines. Some people have been told it will take almost a week to get their power up again. Can you imagine living in this heat with no means of keeping cool? You can't even plug a fan in. There are emergency cooling stations, (which are often local libraries) but people aren't allowed to sleep there.
Back in 1995, when I was pregnant with the soon-to-be-renamed Man-Child, it was then supposed to be the hottest summer on record, and 650 people in Chicago ended up dying from heat-related conditions.
I just hope we don't have a repeat of that.
Oh to be in England.
