On days when hot weather is forecast, we get out of bed early and shut all the windows that we left open during the night. We also close the blinds and draw the curtains.

Sometimes we go for a walk before the day becomes too hot for any outdoor activity. Or if prolonged hot weather is predicted, we water the garden and do some outdoor chores before breakfast. Then we hunker down inside until the worst of the heat has abated.

At the end of the working day, one of us will venture outside to test the air. If it’s cooler outside than in, we open up the house in the hope of catching any breezes. Then we leave the windows open until early the next morning when we again seal in the coolness and shut out the heat.

Only when we feel ready to expire from heat exhaustion, do we turn on the electric fan. Mostly we just drink lots of water and move around as little as possible.

I have a small collection of hand-held, waving-about-one’s-person type of folding fans and I always carry one of them in my handbag in Summer. I also keep a sandalwood fan, a gift from my mother, next to the computer in the office. It cools my hot and bothered face with a beautifully scented breeze.

The gentle wafting of a fan can calm fractious babies and toddlers and also shoo away flies. I found mine particularly useful once, in 40ºC heat while waiting, for over an hour, in a stationary plane in which the air-conditioning had broken down.

Try googling ‘wedding fans’ and immerse yourself in a whole new world of fans. It seems that they’re now de rigeur for guests at Summer weddings, especially those in the tropics. They’re the ultimate in something called ‘bonbonniere’. I always thought bonbonniere were sugar-coated almonds but the term now covers a wide range of wedding tokens for guests.

It might well be that fans are hot this Summer. Be hip, get cool and find yourself a fan, man.