Wednesday 1st September 2021

Fr the past few week, the wind has blown from the north. Just about every day, and so days have been coller than they otherwise would have been had the wind set fair from the south.

Days and weeks have gone by, with no change.

The wind has brought clouds and so the lack of sun has made the days cooler, apparently autumn before its time.

I saw it written yesterday that there hasn't been a summer. There has, just not a good one. Late summer plants are two to three weeks late, and thanks to the regular dousings of rain through the summer, meadows and downs are lush green instead of borown and dried.

All in all, it's been a very odd summer.

I looked ahead on the BBC forecast yesterday, and things don't change until next Wednesday, what the BBC calls "moderate or fresh" wind from the north or north east, until Wednesday when winds swing to the south and drop to a light breeze at last. At that point temperatures are expected to rise by ten degrees on this week's figures.

But for now, it looks and feels like autumn, and thoughts are on whether to turn the heating on.

Here in east Kent, despite the regular cloudbursts, the harvest is mostly in, and there has been summary days, butterflies and other insects have emerged when the sun broke through. But most days have been like today, endlessly cloudy, and chilled by a "moderate" wind, unlike the summers of our childhoods in our memories.

In other parts of the world, grasslands and forests have burned like never before, above the arctic circle temperatures have risen to levels more usual hundreds of miles to the south, and places usually dry have seen abnormal rains, in record amounts. As I write this, New York is drowing after 5 inches of rain fell in 90 minutes, flooding the subway and roads. This was the remains of Hurricane Ida, which has swept up from New Orleans leaving a train of destruction, it is remarkable that the storm still had this much rain and fury that far north.

If global warming means a less sunny and warm summer, we will have gotten off light. Two years ago it was nearly 100 degrees for weeks on end, no respite from the heat, even at night. This is the new normal, but it seems man would rather adapt to the effects than deal with the route cause.

But onto Wednesday.

And I had two audits, two meetings and only half a loaf of bread to sustain me.

And four cats to distract me. Although the internet did a good job of that too.

The highlight of the day was an audit of a factory in Russia.

That's Russia.

Something to look forward to after lunch.

Up to then there is an audit report to wrestle with, and trying to match international standards that my employer has, in their wisdom, decided to renumber in their IT system. This made a simple copy and paste task of a few minutes last all morning.

Sigh.

Russia was nice. People friendly, even if I didn't leave my dining room table and office swivel chair.

I had an hour to ponder what I learned, decided it needed a further twelve hours to mull over stuff, so switched the laptop off at half two instead of three.

I took it out on the lawnmeadow instead, got the mower out, filled it with unleaded and got it going, levelling the ribwort plantain and musk mallow that had been thriving up to that point.

To save my shoulder further injury, I will scarify another day, so I sit with Scully on the wooden shair outside the kitchen, watching the birds feed in the hedge.

Dinner was simple: pizza.

Though I added chilli relish, chilli sauce and chilli flakes to mine as the "hot n spicy" was anything but. It just about tasted of something.

There was football to watch in the evening, whilst listening to the radio: Denmark v Scotland, which I was enjoying the Danes giving those north of the border a footballing lesson until I realised that the captain and key central defender and two central midfielders are Norwich players, and their performance on the night does not fill me with confidence.

2-0. Could have been ten. By half time.