Hot

 Trying to schedule a trip to Bristol at the moment is a bit like threading a needle.  Most of my work now revolves around cat-herding and meetings which requires me to appear in person.

Coupled with that, our building work at the house continues so we need to make sure we don't just go away if the builder needs us to be there.

The final piece of the puzzle is rail strikes.

Anyhow, the optimum time for us to come up was yesterday. In a heatwave.

We'd been monitoring the temperature in the flat and it had been pretty grim so we knew that the poor old orchids would be suffering.  We also knew that as the flat has an entirely glass curtain wall that it would be unbearable to sit in when we arrived.

All predictions were true (40-deg in the flat when we arrived) but we also have a practiced routine:  open all the windows, flush the loos, check the fridge, turn the immersion on and leg it to the pub.

The pub had LOADS of punters but, thankfully, relatively few wanted to sit inside.

Bar was crowded but himself grabbed a seat and I grabbed a couple of pints (cask, natch).  Clearly the poor ol' cellar was struggling a little and the beer was a degree or two warmer than ideal. Nevertheless it was lovely to sit in the pub with decent cask beer and be out of the heat of the flat.

We switched to keg which had line chilling in place and so was a much better temperature. This remains our favour proper pub - anywhere.

We couldn't face any form of cooking so on the way back we slid into Sainsbury's and picked up bread, meat, cheese and tomatoes and that was dinner.

It was still 27-deg at midnight but so much better than when we'd arrived.

It's marginally better this morning but there are 2 more days of heat to deal with and it's highly unlikely we'll be able to do anything terribly energetic.  I predict an early exit to Moor this afternoon.

Actually, given I often suffer from being too hot (being a middle aged woman can really suck) I seem to be weathering it slightly better than the boy who is usually cold.  

Thank goodness for the availability of the sheer amount of excellent beer we'll be able to find without too much exertion.