Record Breaking Heatwave

So my five day break came and went and was such an anti-climax, I think in hindsight I’d rather had worked it. It wasn’t that things went wrong more that we both suffered from illness meaning more or less the whole five days were spent doing virtually nothing except watching TV.

I’ve tried to make light of it by doing odd jobs when I get home and make sure I do the watering in the cool early morning while the kettles boiling.

We managed to get the shed put up in the back garden and some things put away but there we no club visits and no days out that I’d hope we would have. Worst still ive got to work for the next 3 weeks including weekends. So thats just one weekend off in the last thirteen .

With alot of equipment now put away in the shed, its made for a smaller pile of stuff, behind the fence so I’ve managed to put up some more freebie hose items up making my watering system the envy of many in the area. I’ve now got another tuffhoze and a reel screwed to the fence to wind it on to.

This all attaches to the 4way tap connector and timers, which I mentioned recently. Added to this I’ve a watering irrigation kit, which I’ll hook up and irrigate some raised planting beds of some kind, so I can grow some vegetables, but that will have to wait until I finally get around to making some.

Last week a spokesman for Essex Weather said: “Temperatures are now reaching their peak across Essex. With this in mind and temperatures of over 40°C forcast I watered the plants very early and stayed inside for most of the day.

On Tuesday in Essex a new official county record of 39C was recorded at High Beech, near Epping Forest. Writtle also exceeded its previous record. So many records broken that day it was quite incredible.

The record came as the UK temperature exceeded 40 degrees Celsius for the first time ever when Heathrow reported a temperature of 40.2C at 12.50pm.

I did pop out the measure the temperature on my thermometer outside in the garden, it was measuring over 40°C, but apparently the temperature has to be measured in the shade, which is strange considering the hottest temperature isnt.

I managed to keep cool by not wearing any clothes and keeping as still as possible. That night sleeping even on top of the duvet on the bed was just unbearable.

We then had some days where it was cool and overcast to start with but since Thursday the temperature has started to rise again and by Sunday it was back to nearly 30°C once more. So hopefully it’ll be nice enough for for some more gardening and another clothes free day.

The dry hot weather can have its down side though as I found out on Sunday, when a field fire occured on farm lane near us today (approx 5 miles away).

I could see the smoke on my way home from work, maybe that was the reason why they were rushing around to get the wheat harvested in the surrounding area during the last five days.