With daytime temperatures continuing to hover in the upper thirties it’s getting a little tiresome to do much work in and around the house after mid-morning. However, we’ve managed (with a little help) to get a few of our projects for our new place well on their feet before the expected break in the climate after mid-August when we’ll probably be complaining of too much rain.

At the moment keeping the garden alive without rainfall is our big task. Council (and national) strictures regarding water usage means that there’s a hose-pipe ban and that we can only have water for domestic purposes or use rain-water instead. Despite this our plants, strong fighters as they are, have managed to keep their welcome splash of colour into our otherwise aridly-tinged grounds.

Pride of place goes to our two sunflowers which, because of the barbarism raging in Eastern Europe, have an added significance this year.

One project we are glad to have completed is our wood-pile shelter for which only fallen trees and a pile of old tiles have been used. I think the structure looks really cute. It will be especially useful when the cold weather comes.

Another project has been an essential safety one. To protect us and our guests from falling into the precipice marking a side of our land we have erected a continuation of the fence which partly demarcated the front of our grounds. Again we used home-grown fallen tree trunks which we saved from rotting away by giving them a new lease of life in our garden.

We are suitably pleased that we’ve managed to carry out these tasks (and so are our cats). Sometimes we think we could have done more but in this all-encompassing heat, the dire economic situation worsened by ever-growing inflation and political instability we must be especially wary and plan for the shorter term…