Frazzled

Everything in the garden is suffering in this heat. We've lost one aubergine plant already, and today a courgette plant just laid down its leaves and gave up the battle. Perhaps if the weather took a turn for the cooler, it might revive, but all meteorological sources agree that we are due 40 degrees tomorrow, so not much chance of that. This (male?) aubergine flower is suffering along with the rest of us.

Today was a lazy day (I feel like I've been saying that a lot lately - hurrah) with the only excursion being a quick trip into town for me to pick up a parcel from the Post Office, and some dinner for the kids. The grown ups are being treated to Mr B's famous (to me) tagine tonight - the smell of which has been wafting out of a low oven for the past five hours.

Much fun in the paddling pool for the kids today, including Logan who took long enough to persuade to get in, but had a whale of a time once in there.

Just a reminder to myself that a strange burning smell before bedtime last night saw us turning off the electricity in case something was up with that. I suspect a mouse may have been nibbling where it shouldn't ought to have nibbled. The mice in my garden - which have been pulling whole bean plants down their mouse holes to snack on later - have been punished for their greed... In other wildlife news, we have a very odd bird in our garden, which screeches in a very angry way when we turn the outside light on. The kids heard it today in the garden and two said it sounded like a parrot. Conor, of course, thought it sounded like a pterosaur.