The Hottest Days

While in other places, people were celebrating the Summer Solstice and complaining about temperatures of 30°C+, we in Pakistan were going through something much hotter. Islamabad used to be the coolest major city in Pakistan and was a nice summer retreat until about 15 years ago. Since then, summers have steadily gotten hotter and drier. It must be all the new construction, that’s taking the place of trees, and increasing road traffic that’s causing this.

According to Yahoo Weather, the current temperature is way down to 33°C and “feels like” 36°C. On the 23rd June, the actual temperature was at least 45°C and felt like 51°C+. No worries for a person like me who takes pleasure in braving the extremes, but it was hell for some of my friends.

I wanted to post about three kittens I recently rescued, but didn’t have the time so I’ll mention them here. These very young kittens were abandoned by someone at a rubbish dump over a month ago when the fourth one died. Sohaib, Nadir and I rescued them, had them washed and disinfected and after a few days, I took them home to my sister.

They were settling down pretty well, but during the heat wave, they stopped feeding properly and started losing weight. I was really saddened when my sister told me that one of the smaller two, the really cute grey one that we loved the most had died. The other small, loved one (with pink patches on its white coat) died the very next day and we couldn’t do anything about it. The larger one, is doing well, though it seems to have a poor eyesight and isn’t as affectionate as it’s deceased siblings.

Good news is, the recent rains and thunderstorms have taken away a lot of the heat. Plus, I’ve managed to find a few swimming pools after a 2 year break from swimming. Shaukat Spa in F-6 is ok, but I prefer the one at Hot Shots in F-9. Might also join the nice gym they have there.