So far it hasn't reached ...

... the predicted 40 degrees, not at the Brown Mouse House anyhoo. Still, it's about 35 degrees outside which is too fucking hot. It's about 4 degrees cooler inside. Which doesn't' seem at all cool until you go outside and come back in. Then the house fells like a cool, dark cave. The effect is helped by the drawn curtains, it looks like we are in morning.
We almost were when the heat-seeking Pingu managed to slip outside at midday. I'm not sure exactly how long she was out there but having not heard her tinkle bell for a bit I feared the worst and started looking outside. She came when I called, she seemed fine, so I nabbed her, gave her a squeeze and brought her in.
Just a wee bit later I heard one of those dramatic flops cats do when the fling themselves down on the floor. This time, however, she didn't begin wriggling about like a saucy minx, she just lay there, panting. She was breathing really heavily and not responding to calls or pats. I felt her ears, they were red hot. I feared heat stress and googled it!
Right, first off I slipped one of those sport-pack-freezy-gel things under her (she had conveniently flopped herself into the laundry basket, to get off the carpet I suppose). Then I rubbed her down with a chilly brick. She put up with both but the heavy, stressy panting didn't stop. Next I attempted to dip her paws in a basin of cool water, she put up quite a struggle, which cheered me, and I moved on to wetting her down with a damp tea towel (not the Daniel Craig one).
We moved to the cool end of the house, the main bedroom, and flopped on the bed under the fan, where the clever, venerable Small, had been all the time.
Pingu is fine, it seems, her ears are cooler and she's wandering about and has had a little drink or two of water.
What's the bet she learns nothing from this little adventure?