Morning all. Some cloud about this morning. Not big black rain bearing clouds, but light grey ones that are passing over. Some rain is forecast for tomorrow morning which is hopeful, and rather better than a TV programme I watched last night, where in Australia a town had not seen any rain for three years. The holiday season is underway here now with the annual reports of big traffic holds up at the toll booths. At one time all of these booths had actual people in them who would take your money and give you any change due. Today it is pay with cash at some, or even cards only. It hasn't speeded anything up, and can be a real pain if you are behind someone who doesn't have sufficient money to hand and is searching for a 20 cent piece that he knows is kicking around somewhere. Still the Parisians have managed to get down here as I have just seen their Westie Hugo go past for his morning exercise. Have a good day whatever is in store for you.
All too common sadly. The only consolation is that it is cyclical - five years or so with minimal rainfall can be followed by five of flooding, no matter which part of the country you may be in. Back in the 70s I worked for a year for a mining company on Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria - splendid isolation, food and accommodation provided so virtually all my earnings went into a savings account. When my year was up, I flew to Darwin and bought a car, fancying the near 2000 mile drive back to the Eastern coast. In my ignorance, I assumed that the country between the two points was mostly desert, so my only issue would be to take plenty of drinking water. It was mostly desert, but prone to regular flooding at that time of year - I got roughly half way between Mount Isa and Longreach and lost the car in a flash flood. Stupid decisions by elected officials don't help either. Earlier this year, the town of Stanthorpe in South Qld ran out of water because the council gave a Chinese company approval to run a water extraction facility - the town's water supply was shipped to a bottling plant on the Gold Coast. The town had to have water shipped in from elsewhere. Indian mining conglomerate Adani have been given approval by the Qld government to take 12.5 billion litres of groundwater at the their mining site for coal washing - far more than all the local farmers combined were using. To add insult to injury, some of those farmers have been refused water licence renewals - literally and figuratively leaving them high and dry. It's a crazy world we live in...
"Take back control" requires redefining! As to rain: absolutely teeming down here, can't even see the trees at the other end of the field, let alone the Chilterns which are not fare away at all.
Morning all. Oh joy, we had some rain overnight, and it looks as though we could have some more although none is forecast. It has cooled down a lot, 26°C at present, so the fans are having a rest ready for later in the week when it is expected to climb back up to 37°C. The annual fete day on the 14th August has been cancelled, so no aging rock star and mammoth fireworks display. It is a shame, but there is no way you can control 7,000 people in the narrow streets of a small village. The last time the fete was under threat was in a period of drought when fire was the hazard. That was overcome by the farmer pumping water from the river onto the field where the firework display is held. No such measure is possible with the virus, so to cancel was the only thing that the committee could do, despite having spent the whole year planning for it. Have a good day whatever you are doing
Morning all. Hot already and it is going to get hotter as the week goes by. I still do not understand when it becomes seek the shade time that people decide to stand over a roasting BBQ. Find somewhere cool, get a cold beer out of the fridge and sit still if you don't wish to become a soggy heap. Since the Parisians have returned I have been able to make a guess at what they are eating just by the smell that comes up on the breeze. Fish on the griddle is very distinctive! Must get some jobs done now before I seek the shade this afternoon. Have a good day everyone.
Morning all. Not so hot today I am glad to say, but expecting temperatures of close on 40°C later in the week. Off today to meet up with a couple of friends for lunch and catch up on their news. Although we have kept in touch this will be the first time we will have actually been together since February. The restaurant has a lovely outside area to eat in, with old stone buildings around it, and a little stream at the bottom of the garden that used to feed the lavoir. No gourmet menu today, but looking forward to seeing what the chef has come up with. Have a good day whatever you are doing.
Enjoy.. We are meeting with our friends from Spain whose baby was born here during lockdown and they only just got over in the last week...
Morning all. Lovely temperature at the moment and everywhere very peaceful. Splendid visit to the restaurant yesterday, and very good to see that the customers were out in force. The outside terrace is quite large, but to put all of the tables that little bit further apart meant that additional shading was needed and installed. One benefit of being shut was that they had managed to reorder their toilet area to make it better for wheelchair access, something that would have closed the place anyway while the work was done. After lunch went back to our friends house to see all the work that has been going on there. They have lots of outbuildings that they have been steadily restoring over the years, but can see that some of the ideas they had have actually created more work as one thing leads to another. Looking at the forecast for the next few days not a lot will be done as the temperature soars into the mid-thirties. Better get on now, so enjoy your day whatever you are doing.
