What's the weather like where you are?

I'll start off with a simple fact that I am British through and through.  Slice me like a stick of rock and it would be United Kingdom you would find written.

What's more I am a yellow belly.  This is not a term of abuse but rather a title of which I am very proud as it says that I hail from the lovely county of Lincolnshire.  My late sister traced the family trees of all four of our grandparents back to the early eighteenth century and I can assure you that few bellies are more yellow than mine.  

So now we've established my credentials I now feel free to talk about the weather.  Anyone reading British blogs over the last few weeks will have picked up that we are having an unusually hot summer.  We Brits like talking about the weather.  A Lot.  

Although I don't usually like hot weather I have to say that this is not as bad as it might have been as we have had some very pleasant breezes and it hasn't been sticky at night.  I can't remember when Caistor last saw rain.

However, I am suffering from 'orrible inertia and can't-be-botheredness and I started to wonder what it's like elsewhere.  I discovered this lot online (places chosen as I know that people from those places have commented).  Temperatures are cited Celsius/Fahrenheit and I have no doubt that it will get hotter as places pass noon. (It's nearly 16.00BST, 15.00GMT)

Toronto 27/80

Grand Haven, Michigan 24/76

St Paul's Minnesota 26/79

Kansas 27/81

Fort Worth, Texas, 30/86

Baltimore, Maryland 28/83

Truro, Cornwall, 24/75

Isle of Lewis, Scotland 16/50

Auckland New Zealand 11/52

Caistor UK 28/82

So, what's the weather like where you are?

Feeling thoughtful

Taking the photos of the poppies in my front garden has made me feel a bit thoughtful. 

Almost four years ago I went to our local war memorial for a vigil making a hundred years since the outbreak of The Great War.  It seems like a very long time ago.

Four years ago come October I went to the Tower of London to see the poppies and to remember the 888,246 British troops who died during that war.  Since then I have seen some of those poppies as they have travelled around the country.

I have remembered my mother on what would have been her hundredth birthday and thought of my grandfather who delayed his departure to the front so he could see his precious daughter baptised.

And it seems like such a long time.  

It must have felt like a hundred lifetimes for those who lived through it.  And at this time one hundred years ago there were still 138 days of that bloody war to endure.

Whoops!

To start with the blooming obvious, innit 'ot!   I'm not complaining though.  This is one of the loveliest summers I can remember here in Lincolnshire.  It may be hot but for much of the day there has been a slight breeze keeping life very pleasant.  And best of all it hasn't been sticky at night!

Moving on from the blooming obvious, the blooming garden is flourishing.  In this the hundredth anniversary of the end of the Great War, I have grown a few poppies.  Each morning there are new flowers but they last only a few hours.    

Last year I planted three hebes all of which are flourishing and attracting butterflies. 

To my ears (and possibly yours) all this sounds great but not to everyone.  I called on Jack today and I am definitely in disgrace.  (OK so what else is new?)  Jack loathes both poppies and hebes.  Whoops.

But while I was there I asked him why I he had a plunger on his head at his anniversary "do" as several people had asked.  He reminded me that he had been telling us that one day he had been going around a hardware store and had picked up a plunger and stuck it to his head.  But he couldn't get it off.  Whoops!

Sir, I salute you.

Marcia commented on my last post that she hoped I found some sunshine when I went to Wales.  Yes, Marcia I did.  About thirty minutes on Thursday.  But they were thirty wonderful minutes for I was travelling up Snowden.  

The railway up Snowden has cheap fares on the 9am departure so I was there by 8.15.  What I hadn't realised was that one ought to book on line.  The first train I could catch was at 10.30 so no bargain fares were to be had.  Before nine o'clock there was a sign up saying that all trains for that day were now fully booked!

My train was steam pushed - the engine follows the carriage up the hill and goes before it when coming down.  The journey is an hour each way with just thirty minutes at the summit station.  Part of the journey up was in brilliant sunshine but the cloud had re-descended by the time we got to the top.  The scenery is magnificent.

What was also magnificent was the sheer number of walkers making the journey to the summit on foot.  I'd expected there to be a few but it was as busy as a high street.

And most magnificent of all was this man walking up Snowden with a fridge on his back to raise money for Help for Heroes, the military charity.  Sir, I salute you.