It is getting hot, hot, hot

That's certainly the case for us, living in the northern hemisphere. Bizarrely I have actually contracted a cold - probably as last weekend I returned from Thessaloniki in Greece where the temperature was over 40C to a windy and unseasonably cold London at 17C. Yesterday morning, in Peckham Rye at 0900 we saw temperatures drop to 15C! Back in Greece, reports from Rhodes and other areas blighted by wild fires, show air temperatures that are much, much higher.

At the end of May, I wrote about our experience of hot weather in Budapest, and since then I have been dong a bit of homework on how we can avoid the heat, and still get out to walk.

There have been some great apps created to show you the leisurely, less-trafficked or greener routes you can follow in your local neighbourhood, and there are others that find you tranquil places, where the ambience is calm and less noisy, or routes that have better air quality, but there appears to be a dearth of practical information about how we can continue our everyday errands on foot, by keeping to the shady side of the street. There are one or two exceptions - lucky you if you live in Barcelona, or in one particular neighbourhood as Albert Carbonell and Marc Montlleo from the City's Environmental and urban planning department have created the app "Cool Walks". Also Tanya Tsui, living in Delft, has crunched data, to provide your with a route planner for cycling on shaded routes - you can read about how she made it happen here.

Temperatures in south western states of the USA are breaking records, while Vermont in the east has suffered trends downpours and floods. Authors at MIT outside of Boston have used Google Streetview to estimate tree canopy cover while in New York the City authority have made efforts to publish an interactive map of trees and those that provide shading. As most urban trees are deciduous, there may be unseasonable hot spells where tree cover is absent. And as we learn from Greece and other countries, trees are not the complete solution.

I would love to hear your suggestions of apps or maps that can provide walking route information that includes shade. If you are in London, in the newer developments, you may hear me ranting about how tree-less they are, or how discourteous they are to those on foot, failing provide any awning, to shelter me from sun or rain.....

Wherever you walk in the next few days, do go carefully and if in the heat, do carry water with you at all times. Here in London, there is a big effort from the Mayor's office to spread free drinking water dispensers and to map cooler indoor public spaces, but dare I say these are just 'drops in the ocean' or grains of sand in the encroaching desert.

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