Hot topic has been coping with record temperatures

IHAVE this amazing attachment for my wheelchair which basically turns it into a scooter. It allows me to get around London very easily and is also good for slope, grass and gravel.

For some inexplicable reason it also has a temperature gauge on it. The highest it got to this week was 40 degrees.

At 39 degrees it looked like it was melting some of the Tarmac, or it was definitely getting a bit sticky.

At 2 o’clock on Tuesday morning it was still showing 26 degrees.

The fact that I woke up at that time in the morning and decided to go and check how warm it was, was probably not

my smartest move.

Travelling around the world, we competed in some very hot places. Atlanta was not only hot but the humidity would be incredibly high.

Some of the races we did used to take place at 5 o’clock in the morning or 11 at night to try and get the slightly cooler weather.

I used to love competing under floodlights as we got to do it so rarely.

The hottest that I have ever experienced was in Australia.

We used to have to train at 6am (again because of the heat) but on a Saturday we used to go out slightly later.

And out there sun screen is beyond vital. I remember missing a small part of my shoulder and coming back in from training and finding that I had blisters on my back.

I had been out about two hours but because we were training I didn’t feel myself getting burnt.

They healed very quickly but it was worrying. One day it got into the high 40s and the gym and training facilities shut.

It was even too hot to go to the beach, so we went to a local shopping centre. Just getting out of the car was incredible and we rushed into the cooler air.

I had been wearing a pair of sunglasses and took them off and threw them on the dashboard and then forgot to pick them up – I left them there.

When I came back the coating on the lens wasn’t the same and the plastic was sticky. I have no idea how hot it got in the car but I suspect it was in the medium 50s if not higher.

Luckily in the time I was training there it was a rare occurrence, but in Australia they have been talking about climate change and sun screen for a lot longer than we have.

In fact the campaigns are still embedded in my brain from thirty-odd years ago.

Sun screen was not a thing growing up but I am slightly paranoid about putting it on and have been for years.

That is not to say that I don’t burn sometimes. I did it a couple of weeks ago when again I missed a spot, but I do try. It is now down to a balmy 26 degrees in London and I am wearing a cardigan, because after the last few days it feels cool.

I mean it is anything but cool and the rest of the summer could feel an anti-climax.