Hot summer days...

 New for me this year.
Yellow Gladioli

Spent the whole morning playing my piano (washed my hands first). I love my piano, now that it is playing properly. Not that I am - have decided that my left hand fingering is too inconsistent. No wonder improvements are so slow. But better to smile and keep on trying then to sit in a clump, wistfully reminiscing about the good old days when a Bach four part fugue was easy pickings.

After my practice I spent most of the afternoon just poking around cleaning up. I cleared a large part of the path behind the pond, dug out and divided a green Phormium which was sad and sulking, and trimmed countless Locust tree suckers. The tough variegated irises I planted in here some months ago are just that - tough. They've all lived, though they haven't as yet put out much new foliage.

Now I'm really tired, silly really, because it's not like I've been hiking for four hours. Fell asleep drooped on the patio table, and I sense it will be a struggle to stay awake until 7pm (the earliest I can possibly go to bed without getting teased).

Monday 25th January

Good morning to another stinking hot day. Yeay! Have spent the morning visiting the doctor for some liquid nitrogen treatment, socialising, and buying fruit. Time for some piano playing - I will venture out into the garden with my blistered face later. Later than later. Maybe even later than that!

Later...

So I have the hoses on, poked low into the garden, and the dogs and I have walked around the garden and the orchard several times. I like the newly cleared paths - their entrances look great. Clearing paths is worth it - it quickly spruces up the garden with little effort and no major reconstruction.

Making conversation with the doctor's receptionist, who is a gardener. How was her garden? Oh, looking really, really lovely, she said proudly. And how was mine? Scruffy, I mumbled. Oh? she queried, as if such a thing was unheard of in mid-summer's heat and high winds. Maybe only one of us was being honest!

 Winnie swimming with her stick.
Cooling Off

Shift the hoses...

OK. Off we go again to shift the hoses, water the strawberries, and dunk our hot furry bodies in the pond (the dogs, that is).

Tuesday 26th January

Continued obsession with the weather - today's temperature supposed to hit 36 degrees Celsius (granted, this is rather high for us in summer). Ooooh, oh no, oh my goodness, wow, this is incredible news, what will we do in such heat? I heard some radio advice - drink lots of water (what's so new about this?) and don't leave elderly people or pets unattended in parked cars. Huh?

My house is still nicely cool from the drop in temperature overnight. I'm going to play my piano for a couple of hours. Then who knows? Water my strawberries again, immerse self in the pond, wander around the garden. Orchard walks with the dogs every hour, breathing in the hot grassy paddock smells.

 Waiting for their sticks.
Dogs by the Pond

The gardening tasks I feel like doing are wildly inappropriate. Like shifting three old-fashioned roses (Hebe's Lip, a single red, a single white) from bad locations into the fertile, sunny, and well-irrigated Hump Garden. Yes, right. On the hottest day of mid-summer? Possibly not.

Later...

Yes, it's delightfully hot outside, and I've been for a delightful swim (well, a dog-paddle) in the pond. Past the flopping Arum lily foliage, said hello to the fishing gnomes, skirted around the water lilies, over past the Elegia, skimmed past the messy Phormium tenaxes... My dogs weren't the slightest bit interested. If I was a dog and my human started dog-paddling in my pond I'd at least watch her, maybe puzzle over her a bit..