Good morning to you all and I hope it’s a pleasurably pleasant morning wherever you are. It’s been mixed this week – cloudy and cool with smatterings of rain interspersed with occasional glimpses of the sun. Well, Wimbledon and the Glastonbury Festival have started so what do you expect? Continue reading “30 June 2013”
23 June 2013
We had a lovely day on Wednesday – there was some sunshine. Saturday, also, we had a bit of sunshine along with a brisk, fresh westerly breeze. The rest of the week it’s been cloudy and dull for the most part. What makes this spell of less than wonderful weather doubly depressing is that Friday, as I’m sure you know, was the Summer Solstice and the days are now getting shorter. It’s all downhill from here! I sure hope this Daylight Savings thing that’s going on will pay us back with interest in the autumn because we haven’t seen our share of sunshine this summer so far and we’ve been woefully lacking any decent temperatures. Continue reading “23 June 2013”
16 June 2013
So much to get through and so little time. Where oh where to begin?
I guess I should start with Wednesday’s visit up to the big city for lunch with Wendy and John Greene who were in town for a couple of days on a whirlwind visit. For those few of you who are not immediate blood relatives, Wendy is my first cousin, the daughter of my mother’s younger brother, and we had not seen one another for about thirty years, we worked out. Unfortunately, Ms Playchute was unable to attend due to several thousand other commitments so it was just me and it was a lovely day out. (Just reading that back, it looks like it was lovely because Penelope was not with me – absolutely not true!)
9 June 2013
I have to admit, this has been a pretty decent week – the weather has actually been quite pleasant, for the most part, with lots of sunshine. It’s still been “fresh” but a distinct improvement on what we’ve enjoyed recently. If we could just get the temperatures up a bit and perhaps cut back a bit on the wind, it might be just about perfect.
We’ve also had a marvellous week because we’ve had some most excellent house guests – Chip and Leca Boynton and their youngest son Mark have been with us for a few days at the start of their short European vacation. As I mentioned before, we’ve taken advantage of their kind and generous hospitality at Boynton Hall when passing through Boston on a number of occasions. So, we were delighted to be able to attempt to return the favours.
2 June 2013
Good morning on what seems, surprisingly, like it could turn out to be quite a nice day. The tail end of last week brought some more seasonably “normal” weather following our Spring of interminable cold and rain which was a huge relief to everyone (I guess). It seems that this has been the coldest Spring in more than fifty years and don’t we know it – the bluebells finally made an appearance over the last week or so, about three weeks later than normal.
26 May 2013
My goodness, we have had miserable, miserable weather over this past week. It’s been cold, grey, windy and wet. On Friday we had gale force winds, heavy showers and plummeting temperatures and frankly, we are getting a bit fed up, I can tell you. It’s the end of May for goodness sake! To be fair, yesterday we actually saw some sunshine and the forecast for today is similarly supposed to be half-decent. From there, though, it’s a steady downhill slide as far into the coming days as the long-term weather forecast goes. Hmm. Several weeks of warm sunny skies, a light breeze with plenty of opportunities for the occasional picnic in the park is more what I had in mind. Continue reading “26 May 2013”
19 May 2013
I was watching Stage 1 of the Tour of California on Monday (recorded, of course) which started and finished in Escondido (I presume Sallie and Rod were there either at the start or finish, or both but I’ve not yet had Sallie’s report). At several points the commentator mentioned that it was hard going for the riders as the temperature was round about 38 degrees. For those of you who don’t regularly work in Celsius/Centigrade, 38 is hot – it’s just over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Continue reading “19 May 2013”
12 May 2013
We had a lovely start to the week – Monday, the May Day Bank Holiday, was simply gorgeous. We had bright, deep-blue skies with not a cloud to be seen and it was surprisingly warm – the temperature climbed into the 70s F (20s C)! By Wednesday, however, things began to go south with falling temperatures and rising wind and spots of rain disrupting the clear skies and by Thursday it was more or less back to normal – grey skies and cold winds. Saturday brought freezing downpours and hail storms! What’s that poem? Oh to be in England . . .
5 May 2013
Good morning on what looks like it could be a moderately pleasant day to continue the streak of pleasantly pleasant days we’ve enjoyed over the past week. A bit “parky” at the beginning of the week but the temperatures have become much more tolerable as the week has progressed climbing, so far, to the dizzying heights of 16o Celsius (61o F) in our neighbourhood yesterday. It’s supposed to reach 20o tomorrow, for the May Day Bank Holiday, so here’s hoping. Continue reading “5 May 2013”
28 April 2013
Good morning to you all on what is looking like the beginning of a decidedly dodgy week, which is a shame considering that this past week we enjoyed some pretty decent Spring-like weather – it’s been warmer than it has been and we’ve even seen the occasional spot of sunshine. Yesterday, however, provided a precursor to what the weather forecasters are predicting for the week ahead – hail showers and plummeting temperatures. Oh, well. Spring will arrive one day, I guess.
We gave you the least bad photos last week from our recent excursion to Barcelona. Today, a quick run-down of some of the highlights.