As some of you may know, we are in the midst of a heat wave at the moment here in the UK, and of course some of us are suffering due to the heat, which quite frankly we are not used to.

I am not going to moan about the weather this time, just tell you a couple of funny stories. The first one was on Thursday afternoon. I came home from work and Mr Grump was out, he had finished a little before me and my sister and niece had phoned him up to see if he wanted to join them at a local pub for a pint.

Never one to miss such an opportunity, he jumped at the chance. After all, a nice refreshing beer in this heat is rather welcome. The pub is recently under new management and they are doing their best to encourage some more punters in, offering SKY Sports TV, showing all the football, and a new menu .However, their biggest boast was the fact that they are ‘doing their bit for the regulars in this heat wave by watering down the beer!’

I was working today and as I have mentioned it is stifling hot up on the ward, and everyone moans about it (we are allowed to go tightless now though). Relatives are hot and flustered, and staff are dripping with sweat (literally) and florid of face!

The only people who do not complain are the patients who relish the heat. Having said that, it was so hot up there today we actually had the windows open and none of the patients asked us to close them.

Around 10 o’clock whilst we are still trying to carry out our morning washes on the patients, (we have all got gloves & aprons on). we hear the dreaded sound of ‘ne-ner-ne-ner STAGE 1 ALERT.’ Oh no, not the bloody fire alarm! This means that there could be a fire on the same floor but not necessarily near our ward. It does mean however that we have to go around and shut every window and door as a precaution!

To say that was rather a fraught half hour until we were told to ‘STAND DOWN’ would be rather an understatement!