Hot, Hot, Hot.

The aquillegias have grown to about 4ft and in the evening light they shine like fairy lanterns.

I spent half an hour waiting for one photo to load last night eventually abandoning my blogging and leaving it running overnight. This was especially irritating as earlier I had no problems loading a couple of photos onto yesterday's post. Blame the other user(s) of our network and his constant torrenting!

Anyway, yesterday was hot, hot, hot. The hottest day of the year according to the weatherman, here we reached the steamy temperature of 25C. I wouldn't actually like it any hotter. I was at school all day and I managed to get my classroom just right. Open windows on both sides and open doors at both end kept my hut nice and airy and a few degrees below the outside. Despite my classroom assistant being deployed elsewhere we had a very relaxed day with the children getting on well with their various tasks. I found a box of red pens so for their literacy I asked them to mark and correct Horrid Henry's homework. (We never really use red pens on their work as this is seen as too aggressive. The red pens only get used for marking the register.) I had written a piece where just about every word was phonically plausible but incorrect. The children were thrilled to be 'the teacher' and some even asked if they could write their names as Miss .... /Mr ...... . This was all in aid of getting them to read through their own work and check for spellings and punctuation, but in a fun way. Now I need to think up some more relevant but fun activities for Monday as I am back with them all day.

The evening sun shining round the back of the house onto the astilbes growing well in the bog garden. Plastic owl on pole can just be seen at the corner of the house.

After work I went and changed my gloss paint for 'brilliant white' and also bought more plants for the hanging baskets. Usually 3 surfinias (trailing petunias) in each are sufficient but this year I've been extravagant putting 4 surfinias in each and now I've crammed in as much trailing lobelia as I could. I had wanted to use all white lobelia to compliment the magenta, purple and lavender of the surfinias but I could only find 2 trays of white trailing at BJ's. At B&Q they only had big packs with mixed colours and at 20% off so I bought those and shall look forward to a riot of colour around the front door. Because of the slugs and snails hanging baskets are the only place I can grow a lot of annual flowers. One year I bought trays and trays of marigolds which I planted in the stone walls and it took just 3 days for the whole lot to be eaten. ( I keep my use of slug pellets to the barest minimum as they poison not only the slugs but any birds or hedgehogs that eat the dead slugs.) Looking forward to a promised weekend of more sunshine.