Night activity

the bolly

Another day with 36 degrees forecast. We are longing for rain! Or at least cooler days, some cloud, some wind. We’re not eating much in the way of dinners, but Magnums from the freezer are most welcome mid-afternoon. That’s when I swim. 

Yesterday the tiles around the pool were too hot to walk on, so it was a mad dash out of the shade of the bolly to the edge of the pool! If this weather continues, and it is forecast at over 30 until next Monday, I shall be an accomplished swimmer before we go home.

The late evenings are very pleasant. We switch between the bolly and the balcony in the hope of catching a breeze. The farmer turned up at 10pm last night, headlights on his tractor and we thought he must be about to move his hay bales. He did the turning and baling after eight o'clock at night earlier this week and finished with two tractors whirling around in the dark with headlights glaring. Rather like watching huge fireflies flitting about. If he did, he took only one (we couldn’t actually see what he was doing because of the rather large and healthy pine tree) before he roared off back up the hill to the north. Next morning the bales were still in the field.

Two mornings ago I saw a young fox racing away from us as Tim and I returned to the house, and yesterday evening it was a small deer that legged it at the first sight of us as we left the house. Tim saw neither – some dog he! I’m pleased, actually, because if he had seen it, he’d have chased it. He nearly broke his lead this morning to attack something (unseen) in the hedge at the end of the drive. Naturally, I saw nothing, and he never caught anything. Maybe it was the scent of the deer. Or the fox.

I’ve finished reading a Jack Reacher I brought with me – Without Fail. Interesting story but a tad long-winded on the explanations, but isn't that typical Lee Child? It struck me yesterday that he's becoming more like Sherlock Holmes in the way he makes his deductions about what villains will do or why they do it. Intriguing to read, but must be annoying to have someone like that in real life! I found one of his titles  I hadn't read - Night School - on the shelves here, so I'm reading that now.

Supermarketing

view from the balcony

I have complained at odd times on this blog about people in the UK using Americanisms in speech presumably because they think it makes them trendy or cool. Well, it seems the same thing is happening the other about. If you click on the Click, you’ll see some examples of Americans using British expressions. I haven’t quite clued into the Australian equivalent yet, but give me time.

We went supermarket shopping this morning. To my mind there’s nothing more guaranteed to make you feel you are in a different country than gazing at supermarket shelves and seeing strange looking vegetables with even stranger labels. I have to say that the said vegetables, crazy-looking or not, all look bursting with health and freshness. Most of them are grown in Australia. I also looked at the clothes in Kmart because I wanted a warm sweater for the cool mornings, but all I could find were “sweaters” in cotton and nylon mixtures in such a fine weave you’d hardly know you were wearing it. No doubt they’re common in warm climates, but they wouldn’t do the job back in northern England! I found what I wanted in the men’s clothing store across the way, and a third of the price. Colour me happy.

I certainly didn’t need any extra layers yesterday. We repeated our walk along the beach for breakfast at the beach café, and at nine in the morning people were surfing. The sun was beating down and strolling along at the edge of the surf soon got tiring. By the time the café was in sight, we were gasping for a cold drink and a sit down. Coming home was worse, because the sun was stronger than ever. The last mile was up hill and through the Koala reserve, which at least was shady, (no Koalas on view) and then open grassland burned to a crisp in many places. ‘There’s the house,’ we gasped in relief as it came into view and we staggered on as if we’d just survived trekking across the Great Australian Desert.