hot weather

I will prefer icecream

I am always amused to see dogged British holidaymakers sitting on wind-lashed beaches in bikinis 'It's summer, we are on holiday, so we will damn well wear our swimsuits'!- Others come back from hot Spanish resorts to English airports wearing tee-shirts and shorts - have they forgotten how cold it can be in the UK? They end up shivering by the carousel and then snatching cardigans from their suitcases. People watching always provides something of interest.

I suppose it's all relative Bags but it does make me laugh too. You wouldn't think DD2 had been brought up for her first 22 years in Scotland judging by the way she shivers and wraps herself up in layers when the temp is 20 degrees! I sat at a bus stop the other day; on one side were a young couple in shorts and flipflops, on the other a youngish lady in Uggs, furlined jacket, hat and gloves - it seems even the locals can't make up their minds

Thanks for the poem, Ariadne, it is lovely. Do you remember 'The Day that the Rains came down', or are you too young? They used to play it at the skating rink in 1957.
Oddly enough, I have never been snowed in here - because the road past my flat is the route to the ski resorts it is cleared every day and my little 4 x 4 deals with the snow in the car park, although I do have to dig out the wheels sometimes.
I like the sound of my little table-top fan - I find it soothes me to sleep.
We have another couple of days of very hot weather forecast,so I will be swimming in the lake every day, then we have several days of rain forecast.
There are signs everywhere that summer is drawing to a close - the fields of waving corn are now stubble and the acres of golden sunflowers are just a sad picture of brown, dried heads, ready to be picked for the seeds.

We have been having temperatures between 15° in the morning to around 20° during the afternoon. No need for heating, but you can't go around in shorts and a sleeveless top unless you're doing physical work. Then you get bitten by the midges . That's life.

Got my long-handled lopper lodged in our industrial strength (friend built it) rose trellis just under the eaves yesterday. I was trying to lop the climbing rose (that was trying to get into the loft) by hanging out of a window. DH had to help when he got home by holding the ladder while I went up to rescue the lopper and finish the job in the evening.

Your descriptions of the Ozzies in all those layers for what are good summer temperatures here make me smile, gally . They really haven't a clue what cold means, have they?

Actually it's been a lovely 22 c in my garden today and I've been able to top up the bit of a tan I managed to get in devon last week.

See. No moaning at all.

Good morning Gally.

And night night.

Ariadne

Morning Jingle. It was a delicious 25 here on sunday and 19 yesterday and 'they' are all getting very excited at the prospect of spring arriving and the possibility of removing Ugg boots, scarves, 3 layers of jackets, woolly hats and gloves and extinguishing the woodburner which roars away all day and night . I, on the other hand, am preparing myself for return to autumn and then my 3rd winter of the year . I suppose we are never satisfied with our lot.

Think I've posted this before, but it is lovely:

That is rain on dry ground. We heard it:
We saw the little tempest in the grass,
the panic of anticipation: heard
the uneasy leaves flutter, the air pass
In a wave, the fluster of the vegetation;

Heard the first spatter of drops, the outriders
Larruping on the ground, hitting against
The gate of the drought, and shattering
On to the lances of the tottering meadow.
It is rain; it is rain on dry ground.

This is the urgent decision of the day,
The urgent drubbing of earth, the urgent raid
On the dust; downpour over the flaring poppy.
Deluge on the face of noon, the flagellent
Rain drenching across the air. The day

Flows into the ditch: bubble and twisting twig
And the sodden morning swirl along together
Under the crying hedge. And where the sun
Ran on the scythes, the rain runs down
The obliterated field, theblunted crop.

The rain stops:
The air is sprung with green.
The intercepted drops
Fall at their leisure; and between
The threading runnels on the slopes
The snail drags his caution into the sun.

- Christopher Fry

It does Anno - lovely.

And doesn't the earth smell wonderful after a thunderstorm, Butty?

Summer thunderstorms have a special smell.

Camping with the guides and being washed down the slope in the middle of the night! Heading for the church hall with our gear and one poor girl had an epileptic fit at the roadside. Sleeping in rows on the hard floor.....thunder and lightening!

Proper Enid Blyton...I was only 11.

Summer thunderstorms. The stuff of memories, especially when camping. Those old canvas patrol tents. Kids enjoying the thunderstorms at the openings. Kids hating thunderstorms cowering within. And my little brother, aged six, woken by the loudness, coming into my parents' room and asking: "Is it bombs?" He wasn't frightened; he just wanted to know.

Oooh - all this talk of snow - lovely and coooool

Mamie - Two plants, two tiny butternuts - not doing so well this year, but then I don't water them much. I believe in letting plants work those roots....!

Actually glassortwo I hadn't a clue what snow could be like until I moved to Normandy (and we have lived in up North in the UK). Every year brings four, five, six days of being snowed in with no chance of escape, although now things are much better because we have bought a snow plough blade for the farmer's tractor!

Well as you probably know if you read my profile, I play bowls, and we have club competitions, so far this year we have not had one without rain/wind/cold. Yesterday, was ladies day, when the men wait hand and foot on the ladies, and provide them we a delicious salad lunch. All was going well, bright blue cloudless sky, temperature a little up on the norm, but we were all taking it easy and enjoying the competition - then the sun gradually disappeared from the sky and suddenly CRASH! the loudest clap of thunder I have heard in a long while, swiftly followed be a deluge (imagine all those buxom women running for shelter), and so it remained for an hour during which time we had lunch, then out came the sun again, and so we finished the competition in fine weather. We of course blamed the weatherman, no mention of rain in the forecast, so none of us had our 'wet gear' with us.

They dont know when to stop moaning do they want to live in the North for a while and see what the cold, wet and snow are really like

It has been 35 and humid here for the last few days, 28 in the bedroom last night and I hate the noise of the free-standing fans - I would like a ceiling fan, but there are too many beams in this house. Our son in Spain had 45 degrees last week, they all slept in the sitting-room which has air-conditioning.
The garden is wilting, but Butternut, my first butternut has appeared on the plant!

Cheers for gally! Hip hip, etc. I've so often wanted to yell, Aw, stop moanin', you lot! but you put it much better

And where are you at the moment Mrs?

Somewhere where it's a nice temperate 17 degrees. (I googled it)

Ok! Ok!

We get the message.

For the first part of this year all I heard in the news from the deep 'sarf' was 'we need rain'. Well, the south got rain and then it was -' we've got too much rain, we need some summer'; well, summer's arrived in the south and now it's ' it's too hot, we need rain'. For heavens sake south, make the most of it; soon it'll be winter and then it'll be ' we've got a hosepipe ban, we need rain' and then it'll be 'we've got half an inch of snow and everything's come to a halt - what shall we do?? OMG