We have been experiencing a heatwave on extreme proportions. As I write this, I have the fan on in the study and it is just pushing hot air round the room. My lounge thermometer tells me it is 32C, despite closed windows, closed curtains and an electric fan. On Monday night we had a very impressive storm at about 4am in the night. I was woken by flashing lights in the bedroom which would flash every 20 seconds. On getting up, I discovered it was lightning streaking across the sky at 20-second intervals. After a good half hour, the lightning was eventually joined by claps of thunder. I was pleased to learn on the local Facebook page that I was not the only one who had never seen a storm quite like it before. This went on for over an hour until 5am. It was accompanied by torrential monsoon-like rain that caused a lot of flooding in certain parts of London.
Weeks and weeks ago, Kay and I had agreed to spend Sunday and Monday together to tackle the wilderness of her garden. She had some days off between two sets of night shifts, so was best placed to do this together with me. Her garden is an absolute wilderness. She and her husband barely get time to do anything once they get home in the late evening, let alone do any gardening and weekends are spent doing massive work inside the house or revising for exams.. The weeds, brambles, nettles, and ivy are over 6 foot hight and swamp anything else. Plus the weed Herb Robert seems to grow just about everywhere smothering whatever plants there might be, so it is a mammoth job. Unfortunately we chose the two June days that were the hottest on our part of the planet since time began. We started really early in the morning, would dive into the house for pintfuls of water and a bit of respite before tackling another area. Over the two days we managed to weed so much we found our way to the bottom of her garden, unearthed the pond and managed to sting ourselves on nettles and rip our skin on brambles into the bargain. We tore off handfuls of the 10-foot-high ivy that borders three sides of the garden. All in all we filled over 11 dustbin-sized bags to take to the waste tip. It now looks a different garden but I fear in 6 weeks, the weeds will be back and by autumn back to 6 feet again.
Last week I promised some videos of my concert and find that they have been put on youtube, so you can enjoy as much or as little as you want. There are three choirs all linked together. Our adult choir, a youth choir of singers aged 11-18 and another junior choir aged 11 and under. Because of privacy, there has to be an element of blurriness to avoid identifying the children, or even adult individuals I suppose.
There are two videos as there was an Interval between them. If you fancy a concert from the comfort of your home, based on the theme FAMILY, then enjoy...
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTX73llG53qmXRSU0LNiMha765oetdpma&si=qGLp-JCv2azRM7ns
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