Heatwave

Tuesday My husband has just come back from the all-night garage with bags full of lemonade and other nice things to add to vodka. Leicester's medical officer has warned we citizens of the town that we must drink at least three litres of liquid a day (daytime temperatures hit 92°F). We are following his advice assiduously.

Nobody is that keen to cook. The Aga is like a fiery monster in the kitchen, but we can't switch it off. Two and a half years ago, in deep winter, we smugly decided to be Aga purists – no running to supplementary gas rings for us, we declared. We now live with the results of our puritanism.

We have been burgled again recently – five times in six months, so the house is now like a top-security wing. I could offer lodging to the train robbers and, providing they didn't have a set of keys, they'd never get out of the house. So, with every window locked and every door double locked and reinforced, nothing gets into our house, including fresh air.

Meanwhile, the Aga is throwing out hot air like a small volcano. I look back, damp-eyed, to the days when I left the house with the windows wide open, the door unlocked, and Radio 4 left on loudly in the kitchen. I stupidly believed that potential burglars would arrive on the doorstep, hear Sue Lawley asking her current castaway what luxury they would take to the island, then tiptoe away with an empty swag bag.

The above sentence, of course, is grammatically ambiguous. It could be read that Sue Lawley tiptoed away with a swag bag. I am not suggesting for a moment that Sue Lawley is a burglar; the very idea is unthinkable. She earns a good salary and her face is too well known. Though it is possible she could get away with it if she wore one of her own silk stockings over her face.

But anyway, the thought of Sue Lawley leaving Broad-casting House, driving to a quiet suburb, changing into an Armani burglary outfit to do a little genteel breaking and entering is quite absurd. Though, of course, you never really know about people.

Wednesday It is 9.30 in the morning and God only knows what the temperature is. Remember those photographs that used to appear on the front pages of the tabloid press of people frying eggs on the bonnets of their cars? The headline above would say, ‘Phew, what a scorcher!’ I swear it is that hot today. Delia Smith could cook a full English breakfast on my forehead, including fried bread.

I hope you celebrated Flea Week recently. Our cat Max certainly did. He brought vast amounts of them into the house, where they made themselves at home. Remember that song, ‘C'mon over to my house, hey hey, we're having a party’? Well, they did come over to my house. When people ask me what the red swollen lumps are on my legs, I mumble, ‘mosquito bites' and reach for the flea spray. It's an uphill battle because the fleas adore the hothouse temperature at our place. It turns them on: when they are not jumping out and biting my legs, they are jumping on to each other. My sofas and chairs and carpets are now flea maternity wards. You can practically hear the champagne corks popping.

Midday, 93 °F All around me people are complaining about the heat. But it's our own fault if we can't cope. We have to change our habits, especially our clothes. A man has just walked past my window wearing a pinstriped business suit, waistcoat, shirt, tie and heavy brogue shoes. Would that man stroll along the promenade at Torremolinos in the same inappropriate outfit? Of course not. He'd be in an Englishman's holiday uniform – too-short running shorts, off-white vest, black socks, sandals and a plastic-trimmed captain's hat. He'd still look ludicrous, but at least he'd be dressed to suit the weather.

I felt a strong temptation to throw open the window and shout, ‘Take your clothes off’, but I didn't. By the time I'd have found the key and unlocked the window, he'd have gone, and anyway my words could have been misinterpreted. He could have thought I was a mad, middle-aged woman who'd been affected by the heat. Whereas the truth is that I am a mad, middle-aged woman who has been affected by the burglars, the Aga, the fleas, but not the heat.