{"id":2747,"date":"2021-07-18T20:30:35","date_gmt":"2021-07-18T20:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/?p=2747"},"modified":"2021-07-18T22:05:15","modified_gmt":"2021-07-18T22:05:15","slug":"sunday-18th-july-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/2021\/07\/18\/sunday-18th-july-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday, 18th July, 2021 [Day 489]"},"content":{"rendered":"

The hot weather continues today and we knew from the start that we were going to be in for a scorcher – or as the\u00a0famous comedian Harry Enfield used to say when presenting a weather forecast from a generally hot country, it was a case of ‘Scorchio’ all over\u00a0the place. I walked down to our \u00a0newsagents early on as I\u00a0normally do on a\u00a0<\/span>Sunday but\u00a0sometimes the newsagent is shut for 5-10\u00a0minutes and so it was this morning, Whilst waiting outside, I noticed that the newsagents had to post\u00a0various messages warning schoolboys from the\u00a0local school against the pilfering that had evidently taken place\u00a0when a crowd of them had entered the shop. This sort of adolescent behaviour is not unknown in sweet shops particularly of the smaller\u00a0variety with Asian proprietors (who are seen as\u00a0fair game?) I suspect that what happens is a\u00a0group of\u00a0schoolboys enter the shop and whilst one is making a legitimate purchase and the shopowners attention is diverted then other members of the crowd help themselves. So now once the headmaster of the school and the police had\u00a0been informed, it was just a case of reminding any would be miscreants that their faces might be\u00a0recorded on CCTV. I spent a few\u00a0minutes with the Asian proprietor, commiserating with him over his troubles and hoped that he had nipped the problems in the bud. Then it was a walk home and a viewing of the <\/span>Andrew Marr<\/em> show (who should have had Sajiv Javid as a guest but we had a substitute as\u00a0the Health Minister himself is having to self isolate for at least 10 days) After this, we were prepared to walk down to the park, which we did complete with suitable head gear as the\u00a0temperature must have been approaching the 30\u00b0 mark by now. In the park, we were delighted to meet with our University of Birmingham friend and another mutual regular and we spent some time chewing over the immediate political situation and how the pandemic response\u00a0was likely to develop. Then we were joined by another of our regular park-walking couples and we exchanged views over the best ( and the worst) of low alcohol and\u00a0other forms of beer\u00a0about which we are\u00a0rather fantasising in the heat. \u00a0Then it was homeward bound and a case of rescuing the Sunday roast from the slow cooker and preparing the meal for our Sunday lunch -although the hot weather certainly plays its part in\u00a0depressing your appetite.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

After lunch, it was a question of getting some plants in position in <\/span>Mog’s Den<\/em> now that the construction work has been done. The first thing I wanted to plant was my ‘pussy willow’ but in its preferred\u00a0location I had to\u00a0abandon my plans as the roots from a neighbouring silver birch (which we planted\u00a0about a decade ago) ran\u00a0transversely across my preferred spot. So I p<\/span>ut in a Hydrangea<\/em> which I bought from Asda a few days ago but I intend to give this one some special treatments (which I happen to have in stock) to turn it bright blue – as\u00a0they\u00a0often are at the\u00a0seaside. One of the\u00a0special\u00a0treatments is to add ‘Sulphate of Iron’ (of which I just happen to have a supply in stock) but I also think that Epsom salts and a few rusty\u00a0nails might be called for, I had better consult the web to see if I can find a few\u00a0gardener’s tricks to help me in this venture. Then I went ahead and planted my pussy willow in one of the tubs I had bought earlier (and ensured that it had drain holes) and I am hopeful that if all goes well, I should have a showy display of catkins at the end of next winter and in the\u00a0early spring. Finally, I split the Penstemmon<\/em> that I have in another part of the garden and I trust that this\u00a0will grow and multiply and provide a perennial splash of colour. So basically, I had got the planting done that I needed to do and all that remained was to give several good waterings (which I did immediately, of course) and several other times in the course of a very hot evening.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the early evening, the rooms inside the house were so unbreakably hot (timber framed houses like ours are famed for preserving heat) that the whole family\u00a0retreated to the outside to savour some of the cooler air of the evening. We regaled ourselves with some stories from the joint family holidays we have held together in various\u00a0regions of Spain – for one reason or another, these have not\u00a0always worked out well. For example, we spent one family holiday in Barcelona but our son had an incredibly bad episode with his back and spent most the\u00a0holiday on the bedroom floor. Our daughter-in-law helped me to identify one of the plants which is growing particularly well in Mog’s Den<\/em> but which we can’t\u00a0<\/span>identify. The phone app identified it as ‘Chinese privet’ but we think it may well be a Forsythia<\/em>. A\u00a0close examination of the leaves (and its probable parent) tomorrow might help to identify it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The hot weather continues today and we knew from the start that we were going to be in for a scorcher – or as the\u00a0famous comedian Harry Enfield used to say when presenting a weather forecast from a generally hot country, it was a case of ‘Scorchio’ all over\u00a0the place. I walked down to our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2747"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2752,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747\/revisions\/2752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}