Hot and bothered

The weather has been scorching-hot here in London for the last few weeks. Temperatures of over 30C in London are not pleasant. The house bricks seem to retain the heat overnight and I feel like an oven-cooked chicken. The lawns are brown, the plants and trees struggling to cope. Some of the trees look like they are already shedding their autumn leaves and it is only July. It is stifling at night. Even with open windows, the bedroom is airless and sleeping has failed me so many times, I feel like an automaton.

Into this hot-house, I managed to develop a ripe sebaceous cyst on my back. I have had it for 25 years or more and it mainly lies dormant but this is the third time it has erupted. A recent visit to A&E had a surgeon examining me and he decided to drain it under a general anaesthetic, He did not close the would, but left it open to heal from the inside out. This meant I have been having to visit my General Practitioner's nurse to have it cleaned and dressed every two days for the last 3 weeks. I finally got the all-clear a few days ago. The wound has closed and I can keep the plaster off to let the air get at the scar. Apparently they were unable to remove the sac surrounding the cyst, so I face another operation under general anaesthetic in September, once it has calmed down, to remove it completely in the hopes it will never bother me again. This is what the little blighter looked like just before the operation.

Summer concert

I took a break from my weekly Sunday posts last week to see if I got any more comments to my post about Blogland, but suffice to say, nine comments was the sum total (a big thank you to those who did), so back to my weekly post again.

Our recent summer choir concert was a huge success. We'd been building up to it since New Year.  The overall theme of the concert was Earth, Water, Air and Fire, so the songs reflected that theme. Our choir  leader always  chooses challenging pieces and this year was no exception. She chose the 20-minute long medley from Hunchback of Notre Dame as our piece for the second half - lots of Latin, jaunty songs and sad ones all in a mix - all learned off by heart - very challenging at my age! I have tried to include a video of it but am being told the video is too long to insert. So you will have to make do with a photo instead. We had to wear clothes that reflected the colour of earth, water, air and fire - so blues, greens, oranges and beiges - as usually we are in a uniform colour, most often black.

We received the news a few days after, that our choir mistress is stepping down for a year as as she has too many commitments at the moment and needs some time to refresh. She has acquired a temporary replacement for the next year, so that begs the question whether our repertoires will change in some way to be less challenging. Time will tell.