July part two: sea swimming and carousels

While July started mild and damp, with lush forests and a well-watered garden, it ended very warm and very dry, and we experienced some of our hottest weather every recorded in the UK. Many schools closed due to severe weather warnings but we managed to avoid the worst of it down here on the south coast, with temperatures going up to maybe 33ºC, while other areas were considerably higher. Most British people enjoy warmer weather - our summers are usually a bit of a joke - but when it is truly hot it is uncomfortable: our buildings are designed to keep the heart in, no-one has air conditioning and it is often very humid as well as hot.

Anyway, it was a proper heatwave. Glorious, when it was the weekend and you could eat ice cream (blackcurrant and liquorice, homemade, with blackcurrants from the garden). 

Wonderful, at the weekend when you go to the fun fair at the seafront with your friends. 

Very different when you have to go to work and spend all day in classroom measuring 30ºC. Also not much fun for Ziggy but we did buy him a cooling mat which helped, and he has a special collar which you soak in water and it stays lovely and cool for ages.                 

The garden sofa came into its own, and out north-east facing garden was cool all evening, a comfortable place to sit. We ate all our meals outside while it was so warm.

There were emergency dashes to Costa in our lunchbreak for iced anything, anything to keep us cool for a little while.

And then the best thing about a heatwave - going to the beach for sea swimming after work.

We got down there at 6 and were gone by 7, and spend most of that hour in the sea.

It really helped, I felt much cooler for most of the evening - at least until we went to bed, in our boiling hot south-west facing bedroom which gets all the sun in the afternoon.

The heat wave came at the end of term as I said goodbye to my Year 6 (10-11 year olds) class. I am told that every teacher remembers their first class fondly and I am sure that is true. They were a really nice group of children, kind and hard-working, and their thoughtful gifts - especially the little messages and cards - were very sweet.

Which takes us into the holidays, the first day of which was spent having a lunch date with John at The Ivy brasserie in Chichester. Great good, beautiful decor and atmosphere - the room was filed that that wonderful sound of people talking and laughing, cutlery chinking on china - something I really missed during the lockdowns.

At home, I have hit the ground running with Getting Jobs Done. All through term time I manage the most minimal of housework, a cursory wipe and vacuum, but in the holidays I empty cupboards and sort piles and try to impose some order on our home.

I tried paint samples and made decisions, as well as giving the kitchen a good scrub, emptying and wiping out the food cupboards, cleaning the fridge and, the worst job, trying to match the plastic pots with their lids.

It is so nice to have the time to potter, to not just clean but also rearrange furniture and plants, give everything a bit of attention and love.

There have been dog walks in which the pathways looked more like autumn than summer, with parched leaves all over the floor and blackberries in the hedgerows.

There has been time to plan meals and cook, to finally explore new cookery books.

We have walked through the local countryside, thinking that the landscape looks a month further ahead than it usually is in late July, the result of virtually no rain.

There have also been trips to the hairdresser for Bella and I, and to get our nails done too. Summer treats. 

The garden is suffering and looking increasingly dry. I have been watering it but anything in pots has really taking a battering due to the heat.

Do you notice that a certain teenage now allows a certain whippet to sit on the sofa next to her? So long as he's on his blanket....

It wouldn't be the start of the holidays without me emptying out all my craft baskets, taking stock and thinking about what needs to be done.

The patchwork quilt (now four years in the making!) continues to grow slowly.

I have two pairs of bed socks which need mending.......

.....plus a hole in the sleeve of a favourite t-shirt......

.....and my favourite and much-mended jeans need patching again.

It's been months since I did any embroidery but I bought these denim shorts in Tescos and think they will benefit from the addition of some flowers on the pockets.

And this takes us up to the end of July. We have been really busy over the last week, decorating our kitchen-diner and re-laying the decking in the back garden. I will show you photos soon when it is more finished - at the moment it is three quarters done, but we are stopping to have a break and relax a bit have some days out and do some nice things together as a family. 

July part one: sunflowers and lavender

Hello! Welcome to another intermittent, better-late-than-never blog post from down here on the south coast of unusually sunny England. July has been such a bumper edition of a month that I've split all my highlights and happenings into two posts for, despite all the craziness of school and work, there have been weekends which were wonderfully full. Sometimes full of seeing people and going to places, sometimes full of nothing more than drinking iced coffee and hanging out loads of washing on the line while listening to audiobooks and wandering round the garden barefoot. Both were lovely. 

July began cool and lush, with woods still bursting with green. 

The sweet peas (over now - the heat got to them) were abundantly fragrant and filled little vases here and there around the house. Back at the start of July I was watering the garden very enthusiastically every night but I have to confess that I'm running out of steam now.

The outdoor sofa continues to be our best purchase for the house for some time and is in constant use, mostly by the children. It's a good spot to read.

The dog is not allowed on it, much to his confusion. 

There were evenings warm enough to sit outside by the sea and drink cocktails with friends.

And some pretty spectacular sunsets.

I picked all the redcurrants and, despite the attentions of pigeons who - hilariously - kept trying to perch on the branches while nibbling the berries - have almost 500g.

They have all been frozen ready to be turned into something during the summer holidays. Probably a jelly or chilli jam as I don't actually enjoy eating them, too sharp and bitty.

I managed about the same weight of blackcurrants, most of which were frozen ready to be made into ice cream, but some were turned into a compote for yogurt.

I made a top, a summery vest. It is made from Drops Paris cotton so is quite heavy in weight, but lovely to wear. I made up the pattern as I went along and kept trying it on for size, adjusting the length with a few more rows as and when. 

It was inspired by a huge sunflowers blanket that my mum recently made, and she passed on to me all her leftover yarn. I wanted something very summery and floral that I could wear with jeans, and that is what I have. The pattern for each square is a "sunburst granny square" of which there are many free patterns available online, I just chose shades of brown and yellow to make it look like sunflowers.

Other garden pickings included bunches of lavender from the bush in the front garden. Never a very reliable gardener, I am constantly surprised when I manage to grow anything in enough quantity to pick, and since lavender is one of my favourite scents, this did make me very happy.

Talking of lavender, we visited Lordington Lavender Farm, about fifteen minutes from where we live and it was so lovely. We last went before covid so I was really keen to go again because it is such a nice experience. They are a lavender farm who open their gates for one week a year for members of the public to come and look around. You can take photos, buy ice creams or lavender flavoured cakes as well as their products, and just spend a happy morning wandering up and down the rows listening to the hum of the bees.

The lavender ice cream was delicious. I always like anything with a floral flavour. Parma violets are still one of my favourite sweets. A scented candle and bottle of hand soap also came home with me.

We visited the weekend before the heat wave and it was hot. We got there when it opened at 10am, and were gone well before midday, but it was still warm.

And that takes us up to mid-July.

Since then there has been much adventuring and seeing people, but more of that in another post.

Here, we are now settling in to the rhythms of the six week school holiday. Every year I forget that this takes time, everyone getting used to being together all day long. I went into work yesterday and tidied my classroom ready to be deep cleaned over the summer break, and now don't intend to think about school until the end of August. I have written a huge to-do list of all the odd jobs I hope to get done this holiday, and started catching up with a lot of life admin including: dentist appointments for the kids and I, hair cuts, booking dog-sitters, changing our energy tariff, booking the car in for a service, deciding what colour to paint the kitchen and going through all the school uniform to see what still fits. More excitingly, the calendar is filling up with friends coming to stay, days out in London and drinks with friends. All lovely things, and still a novelty after covid.

I hope you are all safe and well. Thank you as always for reading. :-)