Detecting a certain warmth

I arrived back from my whistle-stop tour of southern Africa on Friday morning. By the time I arrived back at home I was good for little more than drifting in and out of consciousness on the sofa while noticing little change in environment. In fact Africa was probably perceived as slightly cooler given they are heading into winter and had a lower humidity.

We had a friend visiting for the weekend who gamely helped Fliss tackle the state of the pond. We decided it was a little unfair on the fishes when we spotted one with pond weed threaded through it's gills. While I busied myself with other tasks (fetching, carrying and other assorted easily instructed operations) the girls donned swimming costumes and hauled out large amounts of pond weed and other general muck. We replaced the waterfall pump with one that doesn't cause the house power to trip out whenever it's turned on. As a result the pond is now looking a lot healthier.

We had both wings of the family over for a BBQ the previous weekend which was mainly consumed indoors due to the rain and wind. This weekend was a full on scorcher that was well suited to the small mound of meat that we sacrificed to the BBQ gods. Considering that people generally look forward to the warming of summer it's kinda ironic I spent most of my time darting from shade to shade and following the cats lethargic lead by staying motionless. Sadly I can't be quite as cute with it.

It looks like it will be cooling down later in the week which is no bad thing. There is probably less chance of being severely burnt the couple of times we hope to make the beer festival this week.