Hottest Day of the Year.

It was very warm and humid this morning with dire warnings for heavy rain and severe thunderstorms this evening. My first job of the morning was to go up and make some adjustments to the concrete blocks at the side of the dam as I felt they were a little too far into the road and might catch out any unwary drivers. Then with the heavy rain in mind I thought it was time to clear the gutters once more. The cheeping from the roof space nest has stopped so I assume the chicks have fledged and left the nest. I climbed up onto the flat roof over where the nest was/is, cleared the gutters, cut back the overhanging branches and cleared the leaves and branches from the flat roof. After that I climbed the long ladders and cleaned out the long gutter at the back of the house. It was full of leaves and moss as usual. Even if I wasn't splattered with gutter debris the hot and sticky morning would have sent me off for a refreshing shower before leaving for work. I went in to teach one of the reception classes the plan being that I do more outdoor PE with them. Things were looking grey as I drove to work and there was a sudden shower just as I arrived. Luckily the heavy rain held off until hometime so we did our PE on the field and had a long playtime too. Before we went out I did have a talk with the children about how they were NOT going to scream or race for the classroom if we heard thunder and we certainly weren't going to make a fuss if we heard thunder when we were in the classroom. 

 It might have been a hot day but once the rain came down there was only one place for Speedy.

This morning a soggy Patch brought in another muddy moorhen chick, or it could have been the same one. Sadly I know that one adult met its end a few days ago so perhaps these are its chicks. Once it had revived I gave it some worms and another lot just before I went to work. So what to do now? I found an informative site with details to hand rear the chick and I'm wondering if that might be the thing to do. Right now the chick has had a third helping of worms and is in a bigger box with wire netting over the top in Peter's bathroom which is warm and safe from the cats. He thinks I'm mad.

With all this hot weather there was a lot of fruit reduced at the Co-Op and I came home with strawberries, raspberries, cherries and a melon all half price.