O is for overcast

After a summer in which few people felt that we didn’t have enough sunshine, we’re now getting a little bit (but not whole days) of overcast weather.  The sky is grey, the garden looks slightly sulky and the sun has clearly decided that today is not a working day. 

Instead, the sky says: Stay in. Indoors will be best today.  And I just don’t argue.

Great artists look at gloom and see colours the rest of us would otherwise miss.  Mostly we see flat grey but look closer, there is colour in that murk.

Look at the garden.  Colours seem deeper, maybe richer, the greens change their tone and, if the spiders have been busy, there’s dew on their webs.   The leaves have changed colour but for the most part, they are still on the trees. 

And look around in the house.  That’s better now that the sun isn’t telling the world how long it is since I dusted. 

Clouds are not necessarily a bad thing. They soften the light, slow us down and remind us that life doesn't have to be sunshine and blue skies every day.

Hurrah!  Blogger has updated my reading list! Life is looking up!

 

Mooching

Well, even mooching is hard work in this weather.  I haven't been here for ages but I have been rather preoccupied as a friend is ill and I am part of her support network, so you'll have to pardon me.  It seemed liked a good idea to do a post of somewhat random ideas.

Blogger continues to play up.  I think I'm finding most of my favourites but that's no thanks to my reading list.  I don't think my posts are appearing on other people's lists which is more than a little discouraging.  They take two or three days to appear on my own list.

This heat is pretty well unbearable.  I just don't do hot.  Cold, I can layer up but there's a limit to how many layers I can remove.    It's much too hot to sit in the garden.  I'm really glad of my new chair as I can relax and I've got a fan right next to me.

Oops.  I've just been checking a thesaurus and it appears that mooching has nuances of scrounging or freeloading for Americans, but this side of the pond it means rather aimless lazing around.  Read it the British way, please.

My knitting group is having a sale of UnFinished Objects or Projects half Done to raise money to buy thermal items for homeless people.  The organiser has been inundated with stuff as everyone wants to ditch the guilt so no offers, thank you!

Weather

 Nearly four years ago I started to knit a temperature scarf and carried on knitting one stripe a day for two years.  I planned it carefully,   I checked temperatures  for the previous two years and bought thirty different colours, one for each degree Celsius up to 30C, a temperature rarely seen here.  There would be so few days over thirty that it wouldn't matter.

Then on 19th July 2022 had its hottest day ever with 40C being recorded here in Lincolnshire.  I had to buy more colours.  I recorded that single day in white.   

Since that day we have had several days over 30C and yesterday, once again, we hit 31C.  Lower temperatures (still hot but below 30C) are predicted over the next few days.

When I look through my wonderful rose coloured spectacles, I remember summer holidays as a child being hot but never so hot that we had to stay indoors.  How will today's children look back on summer in the 2020's??