Friday, February 27, 2009

Hot enough?


When you live in a place where temperatures of 40C (104F) are a regular occurrence, and temperatures of 45C (113F) and higher are not unheard of, you need to find ways of keeping yourself cool -- and your perishable food items as well, when you're out and about. As we come to the end of February, and hopefully the end of the sweltering season, I offer some Australian slang useful for keeping your goodies cool when the sun gets hot.

Esky: an insulated container used to hold ice or icepacks and keep food and beverages cold on picnics, at barbecues, the beach, etc. Known in the UK as a coolbox/coolbag and in the US as a cooler.

Usage: "If you hadn't put so much beer in the esky, we might have been able to pack a few more sandwiches."


at

6 comments:

  1. Linda Valenti DeVincentMarch 5, 2009 at 7:38 AM

    Okay - I thought of you the whole time I was in London as I kept getting the weather forecast for the entire eastern part of the globe while there. As I feverishly tried to do impossible math in my head to convert Celsius into something that made sense to ME, I kept seeing how many more numbers you all had than us. Eesh. It's warm over there.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Roving LemonMarch 5, 2009 at 6:08 PM

    Welcome back - and welcome to the wonderful world of mental arithmetic that is Celsius-Fahrenheit conversion! It might be cooling off for real at last here: I had a fleece on this morning!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Linda Valenti DeVincentMarch 5, 2009 at 9:16 PM

    I was exhausted by just trying to figure out how much money I was spending by trying to convert Pounds into Dollars. Considering I generally need to remove my shoes to count past 10, let's just say I'll be looking for a part time job soon.

    Mr. Behenna would be so ashamed. Not to mention Mr. Gray...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Roving LemonMarch 6, 2009 at 1:02 AM

    Warning: spending any amount of time abroad means you have to get *really* good at mental arithmetic--currency conversion, temperature conversion, time difference, and of course, imperial to metric for baking. Or else grow some more fingers and toes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Linda Valenti DeVincentMarch 7, 2009 at 8:12 AM

    I think the latter is more likely than my math skills improving. Just need to figure out how to make that happen. Gamma radiation, perhaps? ;)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Roving LemonMarch 7, 2009 at 5:36 PM

    A year's supply of water from the Thames ought to do it. :)

    ReplyDelete