I mentioned in my last post that the enjoyment of getting clean increases incrementally the dirtier you are. Well, yesterday I was indeed dirty. I had been hiking here:

and shopping here:

and it was 36C (according to the thermometre in the car when I got back). The water had been off when I got in the shower in the morning, so I showered in a mere dribble. My Amy hairstyle was witnessed by Lynda from Lulu’s Bay and I was more than ready to get a scrub-a-dubbing in the evening.

Having not had proper water for two days, and hearing the pressure from Mr S’s shower, I decided a bath was in order. Once again, I assembled my creams, scrubs, and any fun paraphernalia I could possibly use in the bath to get clean and come out smelling rosey. Definitely time, therefore, for the precious (in the irreplacability stakes here) bubble bath to be emptied.

Bubbles mounted, fluffy and white and the water flowed.

I reached my hand in to test the temperature of the half full bathtub and recoiled in shock as my scalded hand jerked out of the water. Moving the handle on the tap to be fully cold the gushing slowed to an absolutely totally nothing. I tried again. Nothing.

The water coming out had been from the hot water tank, which was now nearly empty, given the amount of steaming water in the bath. It had not been mixed with the cold because, yes, the water was off.

After a good few minutes of huffing and puffing and hoping and praying for someone somewhere to flick the switch that would give me water to cool my bath down I returned to use an improvised paddle to ’stir’ the water, thus introducing more of it to the unfortunately rather warm evening air and hopefully cool it down.

I stirred and I stirred and I tried to play tricks with the flow of the water so more of it could reach the air, but after a good twenty minutes, I hadn’t had much success.

My next tactic was to ‘acclimatise’ my body with the bath water. Perhaps if I just went in really, really slowly, I would be able to stand it and at least get my hair wet.

A few scalded toes later and that plan was down the drain.

Next came my brainwave (no doubt brought on by the throbbing in my feet): ice cubes. I brought through three litres of bottled water (the people talking about carbon footprints don’t have to deal with problems like this) and five trays of ice cubes and emptied them all in the water.

Now I was pretty certain that this would work and was even slightly worried that I might make the bath too cool. When I saw the ice cubes floating around in their pretty star and heart shapes I began to wonder if I’d made a big mistake.

I put my foot back in and it still seemed pretty hot, however, having just seen the ice cubes take a good few minutes to melt, I decided I must just be being a wimp about it and forged ahead.

I did get myself in and indeed my hair wet. It was about five minutes after that that I started to feel seriously light-headed. I got out, head swimming, leaning against the wall lest I faint and waited until I was composed, then went to get the food thermometre to test the water.

It was, by then, ten minutes after I’d got in.

The reading: 45C!