Head for the hills

I have only visited India once – and that was a long time ago, back in the 1980s. We went – very sensibly – during what is, I believe, called the ‘post-monsoon’ season. This period – from October through November – is usually fairly dry but also considerably cooler than are the summer and monsoon seasons.

Such things are understandably of concern to the Brits, who, for some hundred of years, insisted on venturing to parts of the globe for which they were (and are) not really equipped.

We went home, of course, before the weather became too extreme for us. The Brits who were stationed in India during the British Raj were obliged (by their masters) to stay. To avoid the more unpleasant (to them at least) aspects of the climate they established settlements between two and three thousand metres up in the foothills of the Himalayas and in other elevated parts of the sub-continent, to which they might retreat when the heat on the plains became intolerable.

These Hill Stations – as they became known – were frequently modeled on aspects of the Old Country, such that the ex-pats might pretend that they were back in good old Blighty! Lord Lytton said of Ootacamund (Ooty) in the 1870s – “Such beautiful English rain – such delicious English mud!”. This does, of course, beg the question…

As it happens, I did visit Ooty. I had long nurtured a fascination for the place having seen images in one of my father’s old railway magazine of the steam rack railway (the Nilgiri Mountain Railway) that still connects (and is still operated by steam) Ooty to Mettupalayam on the plains below. The excursion from Bangalore to Ooty and back was quite an adventure and not one I could contemplate undertaking now – but I am very glad that we did so then.

“But why?” – the gentle reader might reasonably ask – “Are you reminiscing just now about your travels in the sub-continent some decades back?”

Good question!

Here in Canada we have for the past few days been sweltering under the influence of a heat dome. You may have read about this because it has become an international news story – and not for positive reasons. Such has been the intensity of this heatwave that the record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada was broken not once, not twice but three times within the last few days – each time at the small settlement of Lytton in the Fraser Canyon right here in BC. Yesterday’s maximum was in excess of 49°C! Tragically this heatwave has led to a spate of sudden deaths amongst the elderly and infirm across the country. Our thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones.

Given the changes in the world’s climate it is very likely that we will have increasingly to adapt to such conditions. Having no hill station to which to retire The Girl and I did the best that we could – we retreated to the guest bedroom in our walkout basement, where the temperatures have been a good few degrees cooler.

Clearly this is not an ideal long-term solution to ever rising temperatures. My next post will explore the matter further…