Hot, hot, hot...how can I describe the heat last week? Even if you were glued to the tennis and not out and about, you must still have known about it.

It’s felt that bad at times that I’ve been tempted to have fry-ups for tea every day, using the front step for cooking.

How the hell do they cope with this in really hot countries?

Funnily enough, despite the heat, you still see loads of cars sitting in traffic jams in the middle of the day, with windows open wide and the stereo blaring out (usually classic driving anthems or Abba with a backseat karaoke singer – although I’m sure I heard The Carpenters from one car’s stereo).

Yet I don’t see many people walking about in the heat, or many cyclists, come to that.

I experienced the sheer misery that a car journey in this heat can bring last week, when I went on a rare trip in one.

I don’t own a car myself, and find it more of a hassle in Oxford to travel by car, as I have to then think about roads that aren’t blocked off to traffic for routes through town.

Drivers: sorry, but I don’t sympathise much – Oxford traffic jams took away significant portions of my childhood, as I grew up round here and remember sitting for hours on end on a Saturday morning, watching my dad waiting for the endless queues to go down so that he could park in the Westgate car park.

But despite my mate opening the windows for five minutes before getting in, so we could cool the car down, it felt like I was a lobster being lowered into boiling water.

The drive wasn’t much better – being in a black car probably doesn’t help, I’m sure, but even so, the only thing I could cool was my face, and being mostly stuck in slow traffic meant there was no breeze being generated.

Now, the next day I went out during the heat on my bike.

I had left my daughter’s baby seat on the bike, so I had to wipe it down with cold water so she could sit in it without getting burned.

I then had to cycle, standing up for the first few minutes, so I didn’t burn a hole in my trousers, as my black saddle had absorbed so much heat sat in the sun it was scorching.

Going along, my wheels felt tacky, because you could see patches where the asphalt was melting (I started worrying about my rubber tyres becoming stuck to the road in places).

However, I finally found relief from the intense heat as the visor on the front of my bike, which is there to protect my daughter from errant wasps or chipped stones, also channelled all the air up to my face while riding.

It felt like I was sitting in front of a fan – ahhhh, now I’m chilling!

So all I really need to add to my bike now is a big bass sound system when I’m competing with the boom boxes from queues of stationary cars.

Alternatively, I think I may try lots of towpath rides instead, where there’s peace and quiet, lots of cool breeze and some shade from the trees.