We all have our little routines with which to start the day and similar to millions of others in the UK, I start with a cup of tea. But I take the opportunity to ask my ‘Smart Speaker’ about the weather forecast for the day and today the weather is predicted to have a high of about 26\u00b0 which is certainly quite tolerable. We now have an authoritative study of the number of deaths directly attributable to the heatwaves experienced in both May and June and the quoted figure is 2,700 with 40% calculated to be due to climate-change increases. We could perhaps project this figure forwards to include July as we are only half way through the month and that raise the figure to 4.000 deaths. This sounds dramatic and is calculated to exceed the number of excess deaths that occur during the winter months and is a sombre reminder that climate change can no longer be denied. Incidentally, I would like to see the media track down the prominent climate change deniers and asked to explain themselves but the media does not really work in this way. Both my American friend and I are reminding ourselves that our recently lost loved ones could well have had their deaths accelerated during this heatwave and we are both thankful that we have not lost our loved ones under these circumstances. The day is due to have an early start as my American friend is die to have her car into the garage a 8.15 or 8.30 to have it serviced and I am going to accompany her so that whilst the car is in the garage we can go off and have an extended stroll and\/or coffee nearby. Wondering when the weather pattern is finally going to break, the BBC weather forecast is indicating that a shift in the weather pattern is expected by Thursday, bringing more unsettled and changeable conditions and we expect an increasing chance of heavy, sometimes thundery, showers rolling into the following weekend. This is fine by me just so long as the midweek of this week is to be fine as the U3A coach trip to Port Sunlight will take place then. Much of the country are wondering and anticipating the semi-final that England will play against Argentina and whilst the England team show considerable fallibilities in defence, the Argentina team do not have the stars of old (apart from the ageing Messi) and, as the Swiss showed the other day, may well be very beatable. Every time that Messi takes to the field, he must have the feeling that the current match in which he is laying could well be last World Cup match in what is a remarkable record. Meanwhile, the England team have to psych themselves up for another ‘do or die’ effort of which the best example recently was when they beat Mexico on their home turf as it were. As soon as July is ‘out of the way’ the schools will break up and we will enter the holiday season proper. I would imagine that with difficulties in the airports and heatwave conditions in the UK that ‘stay-at-home’ holidays may well soar this summer. Although I would love a few days in the Lake District, I would imagine that without some pre-booking the prices will be sky high. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The morning turned out to be quite entertaining, one way or another. For a start., my friend and I were going to have her car serviced by a garage on an industrial estate near to Bromsgrove but taking a short cut to get onto the correct road, we turned off a road too early and finished up in a new housing estate absolutely chock-a-bloc with dead ends and roads leading nowhere. When we had extricated ourselves from this lot, we had a similar wild goose chase around the huge industrial estate until we discovered the location of the garage. Having dropped off the car, we decided to spend the morning at least in Droitwich but the very interesting but really quirky coffee shop n an incredibly old building in an ancient part of Droitwich so we had to make plans. We visited various charity shops and then finally made our way to a hotel we had passed which had opened a coffee shop downstairs in the last year or so,. This was tastefully furnished and we enjoyed some really excellent mocha coffee there, supplemented by a shared cinnamon bun. Then we met a bunch of wonderful Norwegians enjoying a coffee in a pavement cafe and my American friend, knowing some words of Swedish, managed to have a few words with them in a Scandinavian language. Evidently we discussed football with them but they were a really jolly crowd of two men and their wives and my American friend never passes by the opportunity to converse with people from different cultures. They told us that the Norwegian media were convinced that the Norwegians had been denied a goal as a ball that was booted high ino the air actually hit the ‘spider camera’ hoisted above the pitch and came down at a strange, deflected angle from which the England then scored. FIFA deny the incident completely (as they would) whist the English press have downplayed the import of the whole incident, doubting whether the episode had actually occurred. Then we popped into an adjacent hotel where we had a meal of ‘mini’ fish and chips in a delightful courtyard round at the back, also having a wonderful and informative conversation with someone who had lived in Droitwich all their lives and was an absolute fount of knowledge. Then we did another spot of charity shop shopping where we both bought some summer apparel and thence to home where we sent the afternoon until it was time for us to pick up the car after its service. I bought a shirt in the right size and also some shorts to complement my other pair whilst my friend bought some white cotton trousers and a top. Tonight, I have a dilemma whether to watch a program on Sky Arts about the life of Mozart or to watch the start of a BBC series on Evolution fronted by the naturalist, Chris Packham. I chose the Mozart on the grounds that I had to watch this as it is actually being transmitted whereas the BBC program can actually be got on the BBC iPlayer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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