Last of the Summer Whine

For the past few weeks we have been enjoying a heat-wave similar to that of 1976. 
Is that true?  I seem to have been hearing an increasing frequency of moans about it being too hot. Yesterday was the hottest day in Britain for seven years, we are told: We slept with the side hatch open and portholes removed. 
Fortunately when the rain came it was accompanied by thunder and so we woke quickly enough to replace them all. 
On our journey today -  ten miles and seven locks - everyone we met was complaining that the hot weather had gone.  We are starting to sound like a nation of farmers, rather than shopkeepers as Napoleon opined.
Tomorrow we have to descend the 21 locks at Wigan which will take us anything up to eight hours and will result in us mooring tomorrow night three miles from here, having consumed £10 of diesel in the process.