{"id":6347,"date":"2014-05-18T07:05:55","date_gmt":"2014-05-18T06:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/?p=6347"},"modified":"2015-02-23T08:20:18","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T08:20:18","slug":"18-may-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/2014\/05\/18\/18-may-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"18 May 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phew! What a scorcher! Yesterday was forecast to be the hottest day of the year<\/a> so far and we were advised to<\/p>\n

Fire up the barbecue and slap on the sun cream.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The temperatures were forecast to be as high as 24o<\/sup> Celsius (a sweltering 75o<\/sup> F)!!<\/p>\n

Reassuringly, it was good to know that<\/p>\n

the balmy weather will not last long.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I do hope it\u2019s not completely downhill from here!<\/p>\n

The end of the week was very nice indeed, from about Wednesday onwards \u2013 lots of sunshine peeking out from behind the clouds, pleasantly warm temperatures with a gentle breeze.<\/p>\n

We had a very pleasant lunch last Sunday with Will & Gwyneth and Phil & Annie Timings in Cheltenham. Many of you know them \u2013 they are age-old friends dating back to my early days in the UK and back, indeed, to Penny\u2019s childhood escapades in Radway. It was great to see them all and enjoy a great lunch with lots of laughs and reminiscences.<\/p>\n

Cheltenham, where they live, happens to be the location of the Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ \u2013 i.e., where all the spies hang out monitoring communications world-wide. \u201cGCHQ \u2013 Always Listening to our Customers!<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 Will mentioned that they have a new Banksy<\/a> just down the road from where they live, literally only a few weeks old. So, on our way home we made a slight detour to see it.<\/p>\n

\"Banksy\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was excellent and perfectly suits its setting. Somewhat worryingly, however, were the two gentlemen loitering\u00a0suspiciously close by while we were there, both of whom were dressed in trench coats and one of whom was wearing the typical spooks\u2019 fedora (although his was made of straw). All good fun, and, if you are not familiar with his stuff, here are a few more examples:<\/p>\n