Heather

I walked Xena in the woods again, but today it was so hot, (it has now reached 34C), that I cut our walk short and came home again. Gavin was working from home today, which is unusual as he is now back in the office 5 days a week. I convinced him to have a break and join me for an iced coffee at our local café, so we walked there and took Xena - I bought her a doggy ice cream, and as I got it our the freezer she seemed to instantly know it was for her - she enjoyed it very much.

I went grocery shopping - there were so many items out of stock, the 'baking shelf' was almost bare, random things like bars of soap were out of stock, and then of course the fresh produce is understandably of a very poor quality. You cannot experience such a hot summer like this and then expect the fruit and veggies to be of the usual high standard - the carrots were awful, usually I would not even give manky looking ones like that to Xena but beggars cannot be choosers in these circumstances so without an alternative I bought them. 

It has been so horribly hot today we were forced to close the windows and put the air conditioning on. When we bought our house and were told there was air conditioning installed in a few of the rooms, I thought this will be as useful as a chocolate teapot because when do you ever need air conditioning in your house in the UK? Turns out is has been a life saver as our house with all the big glass doors and windows is like a green house and consequently it gets so hot inside (but thankfully wonderfully warm in winter). I know many people have been forced to buy portable air conditioning units as one cannot cope in the summers anymore - the young man who came today to service the water feature in our garden was telling me that he has a 6 month old baby and they were forced to buy a portable air conditioning unit as their bedroom gets to 33C at night and they have been struggling these past few weeks as the baby cannot sleep in that heat.

I was notified by Royal Mail that the  photos I ordered the other day were delivered this morning, but when I went to check the post box they were not there. I could not understand it until I checked the Royal Mail app and saw that it had been delivered to our old address! I must have put the wrong address down when I ordered them. Luckily our old house is less than 3 miles away so I went past but no one was home. I left a message and thankfully the new owners phoned me back and I have arranged to collect them later today.

I took some more photos of the heather on my dog walk this morning, it is looking so pretty at the moment.