Yesterday was so hot in the UK that the national rail network came to a standstill as the tracks had or threatened to buckle in the heat.
I'm not sure how our friends on the Continent or the Americas deal with hot tracks but we clearly have a different, more tender steel over here.
I assume that this doesn't happen to model railways?
What I do remember as a kid was the effect long hot summers had on roads and streets and more particularly, tar.
The tar in between cobbles [I am from Lancashire!] and flagstones would melt and bubble and eventually stick to the bottom of your shoes or even worse your bare feet!
There was something hypnotic about melting tar. It never liquified as such, just went soft like a black butter, often forming what I remember as balls or bubbles on the surface. I think I may have tried to pop these but the fear of being tarred may have stopped me. It was hellish to get off.
I haven't seen softening tar since my childhood but then again I may have just walked straight over it. I am a lot higher up now than I was back then!
Do you recall melting tar or any other effects of the heat in the things around you as a kid?
During my childhood up in Kalamazoo, the roads were asphalt in the neighborhood. During those sweltering summers of temps in the 80s (hot then, a temperate day for down here in Houston) the asphalt would heat up and little bubbles would form ranging from pinhead to eraser tip in size. I can recall my friends and I spending time laying by the roadside looking for the bubbles and popping them. Not sure why we found it so mesmerizing or why we liked doing it. Chalk it up to being a kid I guess.
ReplyDeleteYes, mesmerising is the word, as if it were magma or something Lance! I'm glad it wasn't just me and my mates! I suppose it had a tactile quality not unlike putty. I remember sometimes finding blobs of it on beaches. Dunno how it got there but they were like small sand marbles.
DeleteBet you celebrated the moon landing anniversary in Houston!
ReplyDeleteI do remember the melting tar on roads.
ReplyDeleteI can remember the smell of it too.
As for the stuff on beaches, I was told it came from off shore oil rigs.
Don't know if that's true or not.
Mish.
Yes, the smell. I'd forgotten that Mish! I like your theory about beach tar. Seems very plausible.
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