What has happened to us?

I was swimming in the perfectly beautiful Adriatic sea, many years ago. I vaguely noted that I was the only person in the water at about midday......
I suffered from such bad sunburn afterwards I couldn't enjoy the rest of the holiday.
Now I am quite grateful for the relatively cool summers in Scotland. Warm enough to sit out but have your cardigan handy.

Barbk, thank you for your post it's a devastatingly accurate sign of the times.

I received this email recently and had to post it. It’s oh so true

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity,; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty
Winston Churchill

Sad, true, depressing.....

An Obituary printed in The LondonTimes.....Absolutely Dead Brilliant!!t

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Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who
has been with us for many years.

No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long
ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

??

- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;??
- Life isn't always fair;??
- And maybe it was my fault.

??

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend
more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

??

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing
regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

??

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the
job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

??

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental
consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

??

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses;
and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

??

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a
burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

??

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed
to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot.
She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

??

Common Sense was preceded in death,
-by his parents, Truth and Trust,
-by his wife, Discretion,
-by his daughter, Responsibility,
-and by his son, Reason.

??

He is survived by his 5 stepchildren;
- I Know My Rights??
- I Want It Now??
- Someone Else Is To Blame??
- I'm A Victim
- Pay me for Doing Nothing

??

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.??

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Saggi, what a great story it made me want to read more!

I don't know why it's called 'common sense' as it doesn't seem to be very common, less so than it used to be. Many people these days need to be reminded of things we thought went without saying. A sign of the times.

Greengran your post made me smile - DH was on the phone to DD and she said 'it's freezing here, Dad'! 'Really, love?'
'Yes, it's 17C!'


The thing about this country is that we rarely get lengthy periods of hot weather and when we do, many people rush out to 'make the most of it while it lasts'. Then we have reminiscences such as 'do you remember 1959/1976/2003?

We're never prepared for snow either.

I overheard an assistant at M&S Food advising a young man to 'stay cool' on Saturday - he said he was cool, he was over here from Dubai!

Believe it or not Bridgeit people will continue to ignore the advice at their peril. And I must say its some of the older generation who have the worst attitude to the sun and its devastating effects. 10 minutes of being unprotected in the early morning sun is all you need to get your Vit D hit but after that slap on the sun screen and cover up. My mum (in her 80s) still insists on sitting out in the sun with no cream on. Her skin is awful and yet my mother in law who is older has flawless skin. I constantly have to remind my mum to put screen on when she's with me, especially if I've got the GKids with me. And guess what they automatically will prompt for sun screen when we go out and they're only 3 and 5! Bless them.

I just wonder how any of us managed to survive being kids in the 50’s and 60’s....no parental interference , unless we we were about to actually touch the third rail that ran passed the bottom of our garden( no fence). We’d sit for hours on the embankment watching the electric trains roll by into london...with drivers waving at us and if they happen to stop at red signal they’d have a chat! Always a smiley warning of NOT crossing the rail lines as there were 8 tracks.Never told to cover up in 19 degrees of heat , played out for hours in it, never had to be told to drink more water...strangely we knew when we were thirsty! Never told to brush our teeth, that lesson was learnt by six or seven. Never had to be told to get dressed for school as we knew being late was our responsibility and the consequences our own. Never had to be told to eat-up our dinners as with six of us kids there was barely enough to go round and every morsel was eaten. Think mum must’ve gone without her dinner sometimes as she often said she had hers earlier,,we always fell for it...kids are selfish by nature. We had and were expected to have personal responsibility ...while mum held down three cleaning jobs . We all survived any heatwaves AND we survived the 62/63 winter with no central heating and only one fire in sitting room...bedrooms weren’t heated and ice formed on the inside. Not one of us got ill that winter...and our school NEVER closed. Great fun was had by all .

The thing that concerns me as much, if not more than risking sun damage, is the parents who put their babies in a pram, hood up and thick (winter weight) fitted pram cover tightly fastened on the hottest day of the year. Baby will be literally boiling.

A complete lack of common sense in some people who have been spoon fed their entire lives. Sometimes I want to shake them! I mean let's face it, when they start putting out messages saying put something valuable, like your phone, in with your child in the car seat, so you don't leave the child in the car, you have to worry don't you?! Yet how many children die left in hot cars? Some people just have no idea how to problem solve any more either. So yes I think society needs these announcements so that some of society can be spoon fed it. I also read recently about drowning - I thought it was common knowledge that drowning is usually silent, and that you don't walk near the edges of cliffs, and that you don't pick up your phone to text whilst driving. But it seems not.

Hi violette, Cullercoats is lovely! I hope you enjoy living there ?

Many years ago, I worked as a nurse at a holiday camp. Despite posters, tannoy announcements etc, I spent a good deal of time treating burns. It was very difficult to be civil when the victims were small children.

I think you are right, Urmstongran. I recognise this in myself, so thanks for the heads-up.

Last month, having a mini break in a ( fairly) posh hotel,
The beautifully wrapped soap in the bathroom had ‘do not consume’ on the back ?....now, I like my money's worth, but eating soap isn’t on my menu.

Daytime TV? Good grief!

HA ..janeainsworth ….just awaiting completion on a retirement apartment in Cullercoats,,,,can;t wait ...I currently live in FRance where it has been 40 degrees most of last week ……..had all my clothes sent over for storage already ….mmmmmm...macs, jumpers, trousers.....loving it !

Last October I went to South Africa where the temperature gradually rose to 37 degrees on our last day. My friend suffered from sunstroke part way through the week after which she took to wearing a small towel soaked with cold water inside her sunhat to stay cool. Despite drinking loads and staying in the shade as much as possible I got sunstroke too on that last day and had to lie down with an electric fan blowing on me. Here in the UK we just aren't used to this sort of heat and even when we are sensible we can still get ill so the media needs to remind us all of what may seem obvious precautions to many. As others have said, common sense is not such a common attribute.

I do remember paddling in the fountains tho in Place de Concorde, which I think is illegal but everyone else was doing it too. I would guess that it would affect vulnerable elderly who perhaps are isolated the most, but 15,000 does seem like like an extraordinarily high number

Funny I was in Normandy, Paris and Disneyland summer of 2003, remember it being beautiful weather, fairly hot, no reports of such a huge amount of deaths related to heat, most seemed to be coping fairly well ???

I am keeping my fingers crossed we don’t get the heatwave we got last year, I felt a prisoner in my own home, not being able to go out because of that suppressive heat. If I did go out it was very early in the morning which was still extremely hot.
Yesterday (Saturday) it was far too hot here in the SE again, but thankfully it is better today.

I was at the train station yesterday I saw a mother with two small children and a baby all three kids so very badly burned one had great blisters . I then turned to see a middle-aged man with no shirt as red and burned as a BBQ lobster.

Yes common sense for me, maybe but Sun burn causes skin cancer so I say if the media is the only way to get message over then it must be done.

Also I have a neighbour with dementia I have remind her everyday how to dress /act for the weather so I think health reminders are important for those that need educating/reminding.

I spent 5 years in the tropics where I was very careful not to get sunburnt, until the day I fell asleep, flat on my face, on the beach. Couldn't wear a bra for a week. Many years later my sister spotted a black spot on the back of my neck and urged me to get it looked at. Yes, it was a melanoma but was caught early, thanks to her experience as a GP in NZ. I wondered if that day on the beach set it off.
Heat exhaustion, heat stroke and sunstroke are stages on the same continuum. I think I was suffering from heat stroke after a walk out to the reef at low tide. When I found myself uttering gibberish, I was just sufficiently self-aware to grab a bottle of water and go to bed. I need hardly say that I protected my children when they were young and they have extended these precautions to their own kids. I wish everyone was equally aware of the risks.

Oh GreenGran78. That's a gem! - "The temperature was 15C, and he was 'freezing!''

I don't mind the reminders. I know there are many people, not stupid people, who just forget. I really do think it's better to risk annoying a few than to not remind people and perhaps someone gets ill whom you could have saved.

It isn't always the same story either! learned something new on my local TV news.
A man who works in the local TV department and had suffered skin cancer was talking to people, children in particular, in the park and asking them if they have heard of:

"Slip! Slop! Slap!

You Slip on lightweight clothing to cover your skin.
You Slop on the sun cream.
You Slap a hat on your head!

I liked that! A good way for children to remember.

Justme67. How I agree! Also being naked isn't going to keep them cool!

I'm dreading my neighbours starting their extremely smelly bonfire sacrificial ceremony bbq. They do it as near to my patio doors as they are able. First there is the throat rasping odour of petrol which makes me retch, then the heavy smoke belches across, acrid and dirty. As this dies down, the bitter smell of burning takes over and next, vilest of all, the revolting smell of burning flesh . All accompanied by wild shrieks of laughter. Later the laughter turns to loud shouting and they argue and she starts to scream. I have never had bad neighbours before. There's a first time for everything though!

Maybe it's time for some fun style 'public information' ads like the ones we use to get, Charlie the cat or Petunia and her hubby (can't remember his name). I still remember the cartoon one and word for word where the young girl is daydreaming about Dave, fairy godmother pops up and pow! then because he can't swim she gets Mike and off they go for a swim, moral of the tale is Learn to swim young man, learn to swim.