Selective heatwaves. Getting on the housing ladder. Shattered dreams and illusions.

 I wore my light rain-jacket this morning when I went for a run. My weather app promised me rain within the next hour. Within 15 minutes the rain arrived, not heavy but enough to merit the rain-jacket. Later it rained more heavily. When I went out to the supermarket later the sun was shining but I wore my raincoat anyway, as an insurance policy. It didn’t rain on me. Indeed, when I came out of the supermarket it was positively hot! Now, midafternoon, it’s cloudy again!

Somebody quipped:

British weather today: coat on in the morning, sweating by lunchtime, raining at 3.

Maybe we are getting the promised Indian summer after all. Here’s the headline for a weather report in one of the morning papers: 

UK weather: Britain to be hotter than Athens next week as temperatures soar to 26C

And here’s a little detail from the report: 

“Met Office forecasts show Tuesday will be the hottest day of the week, with the mercury soaring to 26C across the south-east pf England. (My underlining)

Monday and Wednesday will also see temperatures above 20C across most of England, with the mercury only taking a slight dip towards the end of the week.”

Once again Britain = the south-east England. How odd. Here’s a weather map with temperatures:

And here are heatwave and post-heatwave pics of Hyde Park, London. They certainly got a lot drier than we did here.

Just because I found it, here’s a Stephen Ashman cartoon on the difficulties facing first-time homebuyers:

And here is a section of Lucy Mangan’s Digested Week which amused me:

“Monday

It’s funny, isn’t it, how many things we take for granted in life? How many things go wholly unmentioned, even wholly unconsidered in any even minutely conscious way – and yet, when they are suddenly kicked away you realise just how much of your internal organisation, your mental integrity, your structural soundness altogether, rested on these unexamined pillars.

One of mine, it turns out, is the belief – no, surely more than that? The sure and certain knowledge, in my bones if never alas vouchsafed by my mere mortal eyes – that Bruce Springsteen does not wear pyjamas.

This is fundamental, surely? The Boss sleeps naked. This is an eternal verity.

But no. According to what I can only describe as reports, he is a loyal customer of the venerable sleepwear shop Schostal in Rome, which was opened in 1870 by two brothers from Vienna. There’s a photo of Bruce hugging the manager, Shirley Braine – to whom he apparently sends regular postcards – and everything.

So. There you have it. The Boss sleeps in pyjamas. Acceptable province of 1950s boarding school boys, your worst boyfriend, and your dad. Please go carefully about your day and from the fragments of your shattered psyche may you rebuild better soon.”

And that’s how dreams are shattered. Maybe Lucy needs to accept that Bruce is getting older and maybe feels the need for pyjamas!

Life goes on, stay safe and well, everyone!