Our burst of sunshine has ended and we've got rain 'booked' for at least the next week. Though the temperature is still strangely warm and as typical in the UK, if it's warm and rainy it's also muggy.
Though I'm working hard to keep perspective, this summer has been one of wildfires across Europe, there has recently been a huge earthquake in Turkey and last week some dams burst in Iran wiping out a whole city, sweeping many out to sea. Thousands are dead and thousands are still missing.
It's simply terrible how many people's lives have been utterly shattered across this year.
With global warming you have to wonder if this is going to become the norm. I certainly hope not, but only time will tell.
So keeping things into perspective, as my house is built into a hill and we have french doors at the back and the front. If there is a huge flood I assume I can just open the french doors and the flood water will just belt through the house at speed. I've been wanting to refurbish my house as all of our 'stuff' was very fashionable in the 90's, but makes us quite dated now. So all that furniture will go with the flood water.
The change of seasons also means that the grass seed will reduce, which means that moments like the photograph where my 'stupid' dog sticks her head into some grass and in the space of .5 of a second gets covered from head to toe in grass seed will also pass.
The worst bit is when it gets caught in her beard or moustache as she hates you getting them out. It happens so regularly that we've discovered that if you get her coat wet they come out easier. Fortunately because of where we live this can either be the sea or an old fashioned bath.
But it's always great in the winter when the risk deminishes.
The rain will also clear off the last of the plaster dust on the patio - though we discovered a slight problem at the weekend when it rained, because there is a higher half patio on one side of the steps. This used to have lots of plant pots on it and a certain amount of filth had built up behind these. I did give it a good clean, but basically as soon as it rained huge muddy streaks of mud started dripping down our new shiny walls.
Hopefully this doesn't get too bad or I'm going to have to come up with a clever solution. I'll not worry about it until spring though as there will be loads of rain over the winter and this will hopefully remedy itself.
Fortunately, the roofers came to fix the roof at the front last week. So the rain also means we can test out if all the leaks on the roof have been fixed. So far so good.
The only thing that really happened since I last posted are that mum and dad came over for lunch yesterday, lovely to see them as ever. It's getting tough for them as it seems that every week another of their friends dies. Mum had her 80th a few years ago - if you recall from the blog this was on a canal boat and I was in awe of how easily she could fill the boat. Plus she only invited women so husbands had to stay at home. Now it seems that pretty much every husband and half of the women on the boat are no longer with us.
They are having to reschedule their lives around funerals in the same way that in your 20's and 30's you have to reschedule around weddings. In fact there's one of their friends who is the wife of my godfather (who left us years ago), that is now in a hospice - so I expect to be going to one of these funerals myself before long.
I remember when at least once a month my parents would have an enormous dinner or lunch party and their house would be thronging with about 50 people eating, talking and drinking their famous wine cup. It's mad to think that most of those people are now dead.
Wow, I appreciate this hasn't been the buzziest of blogs, a bit of a random chain of thoughts - but when I start typing these things I never quite know how they are going to end up.
I will attempt to get back to the 'pretty round things' again next week!
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