What a funny day it’s been here in Worcester! All week long I’ve been crocheting in the garden in a desperate attempt to get away from the oven roasting experience of sitting in my usual space in the studio. My desk is right next to a south facing window in a terraced house that is firmly insulated on both sides by the adjoining properties. It’s been so lovely outside, with glorious sunshine and sweltering summer temperatures made bearable by fluttering breezes and the shade of a blanket that I’ve strung up as a makeshift canopy. But, just as I’m getting used to floaty clothes and strappy sandals, we have a weird and disconcerting weather wobble. Here’s the view from my studio window at the start of the storm. My poor little canopy is stretched to snapping point by the sudden heavy rain and the crazy hail that followed! (You can see my Grape vine has been enjoying the warm weather, it could be a bumper red wine crop this year!)Then the hailstones got bigger and bigger, battering our clematis into confetti and making the hot spot I’ve occupied in my new deck chair for a lot of the last ten days or so into a definite cold spot that resembles something you might find in an arctic landscape rather than in an English garden at the end of June!

As I wrote about in my last post, Pendleton and Penelope Penguin were complaining about all the heat, so of course they couldn’t resist a little frolic in the somewhat unseasonable, but rather pretty, tapioca-like ice. After all, it’s the perfect opportunity to acclimatise before their intrepid journey to the South Pole commences! If you were a penguin would you be able to resist?Oh they look so at home don’t they?! It must be bliss to cool those flippers down a bit!

Well, I wonder what tomorrow will bring? We did have a big day out scheduled visiting Painswick Rococo Garden in the Cotswolds. Picnic, ginger beer and a bottle of Prosecco are chilling in the fridge, (I might as well have chilled them in the garden!). Sun cream, straw hat and foldaway chairs are packed up in the car – but I’m not so sure I want to go now. Back to Plan B, except I didn’t make one, so certain was I of our summer heatwave! Ah well, it’s the weekend anyway, if the summer scores another epic fail tomorrow I’m sure I’ll think of somewhere else that’s fun to take the family. We might even be going tobogganing at this rate!