Stormy Weather II

[Pulcinella]

Neighbourhood residents' big picnic lunch here, shortly.
Unbroken blue sky: simply glorious.
Just off to help put the gazebo up.
Sunscreen and hat at the ready, as well as jugs of water to put in the community centre fridge.
Will save the alcohol for later, I think, perhaps during the Cardiff Singer final.

[BBMmk2]

Interesting comments on my local Facebook page about dog walking in this heatwave we are experiencing. People are saying that how irresponsible dog owners are about walking their dogs in the height of he day, at it's hottest! Dog owners should be aware that dogs' paws are liable to blister, when on pavements. Please be aware of this.

[Stanfordian]

On the Ribble Estuary by the Irish Sea its cracking the flags here already. Unusually there is no breeze here.

[Serial_Apologist]

It actually reached a maximum of 31 C here on the S London heights - pretty rare for temperatures to equal those in the centre of town, which must be explained by convection and advection of the hot pool over the city's centre creeping uphill and not being ble to escape out into the higher atmosphere because there was a temperature inversion cap: the same cap that prevented the copious cumulus growth from bubbling up into thunderstorms some had predicted.

The weekend weather proved beneficial for the many events being hosted in the district, ranging from a Great Get Together gathering in memory of Jo Cox, in an Anerley community centre (a bring-your-own food picnic), to the Crystal Palace Festival, the once-a-year opening of the High Level Station underpass, one of the few relics remaining from the burning down of CP in 1936, and an historical guided walk around the "Upper Norwood Triangle". One had to be selective, and I chose the latter three events. Crystal Palace Festival has exploded from the rather disappointing do of a few years ago in the little park behind Sainsbury's to an event that needed a good four acres-worth of Crystal Palace Park to fit in all the stalls and a couple of bandstands, and at least an hour to just walk around. Together with the usual sorts of things on display - trinkets, craft-made local produce, tents containing an eye-feasting range of fabrics, cushions and ceramics under awnings of psychedelic intensity that took one several minutes to re-adjust to normal greenery from. and foodstalls offering much more than the usual greasy pungent smoke-enveloped fry up. A local teenage band was performing heavy metal rock fronted by a female rapper who looked about 14. Bags were checked by smiling welcoming gate guards in accordance with the ban on alchohol displayed, and everywhere the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly under the blisterning sun.

Since the temperatures are expected to peak at a tropical 32 C today - 90 F in old money - I shall probably stay in all day behind my closed windows and curtains listening to recordings, maybe venturing out for a pleasant evening stroll amid the characteristic scents of nature left wafting in the air as the temperatures fall off.

[DracoM]

Scorcher oop 'ere. Druggingly hot.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The weather here in the Pennines is ...



... sid ot: too hot to be bothered.

[vinteuil]

The weather here in the Pennines is ...



... sid ot: too hot to be bothered.

... a cousin, praps, of sid i barrani.

It was ot there, too. I always think of John Mills and that beer in Alexandria...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sidi_Barrani

[Serial_Apologist]

... a cousin, praps, of sid i barrani.

It was ot there, too. I always think of John Mills and that beer in Alexandria...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sidi_Barrani

For a moment there I was thinking that you were thinking of the other Barrett...

[Lat-Literal]

It actually reached a maximum of 31 C here on the S London heights - pretty rare for temperatures to equal those in the centre of town, which must be explained by convection and advection of the hot pool over the city's centre creeping uphill and not being ble to escape out into the higher atmosphere because there was a temperature inversion cap: the same cap that prevented the copious cumulus growth from bubbling up into thunderstorms some had predicted.

The weekend weather proved beneficial for the many events being hosted in the district, ranging from a Great Get Together gathering in memory of Jo Cox, in an Anerley community centre (a bring-your-own food picnic), to the Crystal Palace Festival, the once-a-year opening of the High Level Station underpass, one of the few relics remaining from the burning down of CP in 1936, and an historical guided walk around the "Upper Norwood Triangle". One had to be selective, and I chose the latter three events. Crystal Palace Festival has exploded from the rather disappointing do of a few years ago in the little park behind Sainsbury's to an event that needed a good four acres-worth of Crystal Palace Park to fit in all the stalls and a couple of bandstands, and at least an hour to just walk around. Together with the usual sorts of things on display - trinkets, craft-made local produce, tents containing an eye-feasting range of fabrics, cushions and ceramics under awnings of psychedelic intensity that took one several minutes to re-adjust to normal greenery from. and foodstalls offering much more than the usual greasy pungent smoke-enveloped fry up. A local teenage band was performing heavy metal rock fronted by a female rapper who looked about 14. Bags were checked by smiling welcoming gate guards in accordance with the ban on alchohol displayed, and everywhere the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly under the blisterning sun.

Since the temperatures are expected to peak at a tropical 32 C today - 90 F in old money - I shall probably stay in all day behind my closed windows and curtains listening to recordings, maybe venturing out for a pleasant evening stroll amid the characteristic scents of nature left wafting in the air as the temperatures fall off.

I like the warm weather but it is all getting very hot. One of my worst nights in living memory yesterday. I spent some of the early hours in the garden accompanied by a distant car alarm and a party atmosphere in a house in an adjoining street. Possibly they have just submitted yet another money-making application for their own demolition and an inappropriate development. My mother's lifelong if sporadic cough has returned. It is more audible with the windows of both homes open. Her distress is countered by more talking and overdoing "purpose" wherever possible. Having got to sleep at 6.30am I received a call from her at 8am. "Is there something wrong Mum?" "No. Me and your father are just off to Tescos. We've got the car so is there anything really heavy that you want bringing back as it is really no problem?". "Erm, no thank you, take care, I'm not feeling too well and remember that you become anxious when I carry just a couple of carrier bags". The heat increases later. Lee the fence mender is spotted. For the third time, I clear the path alongside my house to enable him to access the fence. All the weighty recyclables taken back into the kitchen again while ironically this week's refuse collection remains on the steps. They can't collect today for some reason. Then, in a flash, the white van is gone. It was just another temporary visit from him. Hopefully he can see to it some day soon.

The phone goes again at 4.15pm. This is, as to some extent was the call at 8am, to ensure I am keeping regular hours. The notion is that if one gets up late or has any sort of siesta that the nights will be bad. But actually the nights are bad when neither of those things apply. They are bad when one isn't permitted or indeed permitting oneself to accept more natural physical rhythms in 90 degrees. "Do you want any raspberries, love?" "No, thank you, I've bought some". "When?" "Oh, I don't know. I can't recall". At that point one turns from thinking about raspberries to take the 15 watering cans to the plants. The chat across the broken fence begins convivially but it quickly turns to a point of tension. "Do you want either of the bags of compost that we have carried back?" I feel my temperature rising. "You've carried those?" "Where?" she asks. "Anywhere - I am not discussing it as I don't want rows". There are no rows. Just temporary frost from each of them at 86 or 87 almost because there isn't a compost war. And there is the old "please don't attack us".

[Petrushka]

The temperature reached 35 degrees in Derby this afternoon according to the gauge in the railway station car park and in my listening room at this very moment it is 29 degrees, no doubt assisted by the heat coming from the amplifier.

Unlike some, I love these hot nights and never have trouble in sleeping. Long may this weather continue. After a run of poor years looks like we have a real British summer at last.

[Serial_Apologist]

Despite breaking yesterday's maxima not far too the west, here it was thankfully a couple of degrees down on yesterday, with gentle winds wafting in from the south-east. I stayed indoors till 1600 hrs then sunbathed out on the fresh-mown lawn until 7 pm - the latest I can remember. Without help, the main difficulty in applying the factor 15 unaided consists in not getting one's palms sticky, then transferring that stickiness to ones reading materials and spectacles - a problem part-overcome by splodging the white stuff onto both arms, then using the backs of the hands to spread it all around and onto back, neck and shoulders (plus legs if in shorts, while not of course forgetting the ears, which are easily susceptible to serious sunburn and my old Irish friend Mel O'Noma.

Thursday looks likely to be the worst day, as then the winds will be coming around to the south and bringing a lot of extra humidity into the mix; then the heat is expected to slowly drain away with the onset of fresher south-westerlies everywhere, and be back to normal by the weekend, thank goodness!

[Lat-Literal]

Despite breaking yesterday's maxima not far too the west, here it was thankfully a couple of degrees down on yesterday, with gentle winds wafting in from the south-east. I stayed indoors till 1600 hrs then sunbathed out on the fresh-mown lawn until 7 pm - the latest I can remember. Without help, the main difficulty in applying the factor 15 unaided consists in not getting one's palms sticky, then transferring that stickiness to ones reading materials and spectacles - a problem part-overcome by splodging the white stuff onto both arms, then using the backs of the hands to spread it all around and onto back, neck and shoulders (plus legs if in shorts, while not of course forgetting the ears, which are easily susceptible to serious sunburn and my old Irish friend Mel O'Noma.

Thursday looks likely to be the worst day, as then the winds will be coming around to the south and bringing a lot of extra humidity into the mix; then the heat is expected to slowly drain away with the onset of fresher south-westerlies everywhere, and be back to normal by the weekend, thank goodness!

I very much like the idea that your freshly mown lawns are genuinely freshly mown lawns and not a euphemism for the objectives of vaping shops - on the surface a merely private affair but a sly and systematic international governmental infrastructure gateway to social breakdown with adolescent and/or revolutionary modern "professional" medical support.

You were so wise, too, on the self-application. I am quite adept at it myself.

I also fully agree with your recent comments elsewhere but will not say which ones exactly - one might call it the working class culture bit that has resonance beyond zeitgist.

It's not the right place but can I put on record here my thanks to Miss Mitchell of Epsom Downs. As a supposed historian, I made extensive use of Google to pick out the one I wanted to have fingers on my family. She is a treasure - really she is, so thorough - and in this heat my one joy. Exotic appearance? Pah....am total Bermondsey Boy and proud.

(not that I would wish in any of these respects to be inadvertently controversial)

[BBMmk2]

Going to be around 30C today! Arrgh! I think similar temps last night! No wonder had a bad night!

[Lat-Literal]

I took a sleeping bag and a pillow into the back garden.

The grass was damp but I fell asleep immediately, having been awake indoors for hours.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I took a sleeping bag and a pillow into the back garden.
The grass was damp but I fell asleep immediately, having been awake indoors for hours.

I wish I'd thought of that! I got about four hours' intermittent sleep last night.

It looks as if today's going to be cooler, thank goodness, and the air certainly feels fresher this morning.