Thursday

Good morning everyone.
It feels a bit fresher this morning but the forecast is for the highest temperatures yet so I'm not hopeful.

Actually, yesterday wasn't so bad as far as coping was concerned.  I am glad that on Tuesday I put together a pedestal fan that's been in its box under the stairs for a while.  It's made a big difference as long as I stay within its range.  I'm also more than glad that I don't have to rush off to school and swelter in a hot classroom trying to make each child make 'outstanding progress' while they likewise swelter and want to go to sleep!  These hot spells were never easy at school.

I started off with tuition.  I go to their house and all the doors and windows were open, creating a pleasant through draft.  This particular student is great to work with so it was very enjoyable.

After tuition, I 'girded up my loins' as the old saying goes and drove down to the allotment.  After all, if I was hot and thirsty, the plants were even more so.  It took a while but everything got watered well, I picked two courgettes and a handful of mange tout and I also thinned out the two apple trees, something I've been meaning to do for ages so now there are only two or three fruit on each bunch (is the word 'spur'?).  Doing the redlove gave me particular pleasure as two years ago I could count the fruit on my fingers and none of them reached maturity.  I am very much hoping to get some mature fruit this year.
I was disgusting sweaty by the time I'd finished.

Then it was home, James, to sort out what was a very untidy kitchen.  It was mostly things out of place though, easily sorted without too much effort.  Lunch was very simple - leftover frittata and some halved tomatoes plus the obligatory glass of water.  At the moment I am keeping a jug of water in the fridge, topping up after I pour some out.  It's working a treat and is much more thirst quenching that diet coke!.

I considered doing some ironing in the afternoon but decided that creating extra heat at that time of day probably wasn't all that sensible an idea so I rested and very nice it was too.
Come the evening it was much fresher, really rather nice so I did a bit - just a bit - of the ironing.

Today it's supposed to get even hotter so I will get the allotment watering done early after which Alex is coming over to continue my bus training.  I'm not sure taking a bus will be all that pleasant but we're going to John Lewis for lunch and that's air conned.

Then, in the evening, I'm doing a catch up tuition session but that's all been planned so all I have to do is read through to remind myself of the lesson content.

It should be a very pleasant day made all the more pleasant by noticing this.

I'd like to say it's a sungold so nearly there but the truth is it is one of the self seeded plants, from a sungold but it won't be a sungold (dad says) because they are F1 hybrids and, as some bumph I found explains -
" But seed collected from an Fl hybrid will not produce plants the same as those from which it is collected. Only by crossing the pure lines can the variety be made - and only the original breeder has the necessary pure lines."
So it's not sungold, it's a mystery soon to be solved but, so far, it looks awfully like a sungold!

A few more photos.

There will be raspberries in the autumn . . .

. . . and runner beans for dinner - yay!