heat and dust

There is officially a heatwave.  The Met Office website says:

There is a 90 % probability of heatwave conditions between 0900 on Wednesday and 2100 on Thursday in parts of England.

High temperatures are expected to continue across much of England over the next few days. Temperatures are expected to reach or come close to Level 3 Heat Health Watch criteria in London and Southeast England.  Elsewhere  temperatures may come close to criteria, however certainty is lower, giving a Level 2 Heat Health Watch in all but the North East and North West of England.

Unless you are very young, very old, or suffering from a chronic disease, in which case the Heat Health Watch is aimed at you, such weather is generally accepted to be 'glorious' and we are all supposed to be 'basking' in it.  Basking is what you do, when the thermometer hits 25 degrees or above.

The trouble is, it is dull after the first day.  I don't even bask when I go on holiday.  I like doing stuff.  I haven't actually been on a beach holiday since I was of an age to possess a bucket and spade and believed that swimming in the sea in the UK was a good idea (it isn't.  It's bloody freezing even in summer) and the Systems Administrator is no good in heat at all, collapsing like a balloon with a slow puncture.  This is one reason why we have booked our holiday this year for September, and are going to Staffordshire and not the south of France (other reasons being that cottages are much cheaper then, and everyone's children have gone back to school).

I don't mind heat as much as the SA, but it does limit what one can do.  We certainly won't be going for any walks while this lasts.  I am very reluctant to risk it with the trains, what with the tracks buckling in the heat, the overhead lines sagging, the risk of one's fellow passengers being taken ill, and the fact that Greater Anglia are making no concessions to summer.  A friend who had to go in on Monday reported that the heating in her carriage was running full blast on the way home.  So plans to go and see Lowry, the RA Summer Exhibition and the current show at the Dulwich Picture Gallery are all on hold, a pity since walking around an air conditioned art gallery could otherwise be rather pleasant.

Goodness knows, the gardening season has been short enough as it is in recent years, what with everlasting winter and ceaseless rain.  It's very difficult to get everything done if you only get two little windows of opportunity, in autumn and spring, before conditions are completely unsuitable for working outside.  I've made some progress today.  I've split a Primula poissonii bought for the purpose, taken some cuttings from a Penstemon 'Garnet' also bought to yield cutting material, and potted the parent plant into a 2 litre pot to grow on and provide more cuttings later.  I've also been to the tip, weeded in the herb bed, dead headed most of the sage bush, fed two of the struggling clematis, and covered their roots with cobbles to keep them cool and remind me where they are. I've planted out a small bay cutting that's been growing on in the greenhouse, and some thyme plants which could have done with getting into the ground a month ago.  I've put my collection of clay pots away in the pot shed, and watered the pots in the Italian garden with a weak solution of liquid fertiliser.  But that isn't much to show for over half a day's work.  It sounds more written out in full, but everything I planted out was in a tiny pot, and the weeds I pulled up didn't even fill half a bucket.

I shouldn't be so ungrateful, but glorious weather is over-rated.  If it would just stick at being warm enough for me to take my fleece off that would do me fine.