Cold inside

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“Brrrr it is getting cold in here” she said. “Put the little oil heater on”. ‘yeah, ok’…

“I’ll have to put my jumper on”…

Half an hour later, “that heater isn’t doing much, and you have had the oven on to bake a loaf. Is the central heating working?” ‘ow yes, the radiator is hot…..’ “so why is it so cold in here?” ‘I don’t know?!’

Half an hour later. ‘I’m just going to water the plants upstairs’…

‘er I think I know why it’s cold….?’

“why?”

‘I left the window open’

‘I’ve shut it now’

🤦‍♂️ Face-palm.

Hanging baskets

This was my garden…….in 2017….20170831_153616

This was my back yard last year. Everything was lush and green with lots of colour. This year things are not as good, some plants are wilting in the heat, others have only just survived. I haven’t taken photos of them because its all a bit messy. Still I will persevere. We might be getting some rain on Sunday if we are lucky.

There may be some thunderstorms east of us but nothing due here. It’s so strange, we are a wet country usually. We are normally known for complaining about cold wet summers, and grey dismal winters.

Climate change? I don’t know. But something is going on.

Multiply up all the gardens in the country where the plants are struggling. Then think of all the farms that are having trouble, having to feed hay and winter food stocks to there animals because there is not enough grass for them. It’s not normal. While over in Europe temperatures have risen above 40°C.

But we are lucky in comparison with other parts of the world. Terrible floods, droughts. The world’s temperature has risen since the turn of the millennium.

We are worried by plastic in the oceans, maybe we should really worry about the climate before its too late. Climate scientists have reported that the weather could actually become so hot that we end up in a “hot house Earth” scenario.

If not for our generation, but for future ones we need to stop listening to business people whose interest is short term gain and move to a more balanced, less greedy world. If that means that rich western countries should share technology with the whole world then that’s what we should do. Rant for the day over. ..

Rain and Shine

The UK is one if those weird places in the world where the weather can change at the drop of a hat (or a cold front). The hot dry weather we have experienced over the last few weeks has taken us a bit by surprise.

British people expect changeable weather. If its sunny for a few days, and hot, we expect a thundery breakdown of the weather, raining cats and dogs…. (metaphorically)…If it is raining we expect more of it, or fog or snow, or hail….we can’t get used to it….and yet we are fine if we go abroad, where its always sunny!

Britain lies in a temperate climate, with winds coming towards us from all directions…East winds bringing cold Siberian temperatures or rain from Europe, North winds with storms and snow, West winds with Atlantic gales and low pressures, or areas of high pressure that can bring sun or frost. Heat rising on winds from the South,  dragging up sand from the Sahara ….

There are many sayings in Britain along the lines of “if you can see _____ its going to rain, and if you can’t see _____ it is raining.” That is why its such a green land.

But, we are using too much of the water that we have in reserves, there are canals being closed for the summer because they don’t have enough water. Some reservoirs are almost empty…it is not a crisis yet. It may not get that bad but we are hearing about possible hose pipe bans.

Maybe It is global warming, all I can say is I hope humanity decide to do something about it…..