Wednesday 25th July 2018

5 months until Christmas.

Just saying.

And just when you thin it couldn't possibly get any hotter, it does. And will continue to do so until Friday when we are hoping the weather will break with crashes of thunder and flashes of lightning.

We are awake before the alarms, as the first rays of the morning sun tough the side of the house, signalling another day for me, working from home which in the afternoon becomes the cooler from The Great Escape.

I am up first, make breakfast, coffee and feed the cats, Jools has a shower before she comes down, so is dressed and ready to go to work at quarter past six.

I know I have to do all productive work before lunch, as after lunch the house becomes unbearable, and there would be no respite on the patio, as that faces south, into the face of the burning ball of fire.

Once fed, the cats vanish. All day. Only Scully slouches back for some lunch and then creeps back out again.

Officially, it was the first two shower day of the year, and I went into the shower wetter than when I left.

Again.

Ten minutes later, it was if I had not had the shower. Hot again.

So, I send the afternoon on the sofa with my laptop on my lap, tapping away while 200 cyclists peddled like crazy for two hours, up and down three mountains in temperatures nearly as warm as here.

But they do get paid well for it.

They would have to.

Once they reached the top of the third mountain and the race ended, I sprang into action, peeling and slicing aubergine before preparing them for dinner to go with yet more pasta salad.

It was also a two beer day, one with dinner and the other sitting out on the patio as the sun had moved round and the chairs were in the shadow of the hedge.

We fritter the evening away, temperatures drop a little, but not much.

We try to go to bed early to get some sleep. Precious sleep. It was not yet dark.