Each week I’ll try and post quick links to things that I’ve seen, read, inspired me or just sparked my interest in the previous week, with a little background and my thoughts and other things that I’ve been up to in the previous week. Mostly gardening, cooking and environmental stuff but not always.

Life In General. – We’ve had the hottest June day since 1976 with a spell of several days back to back where the temperature was around 28°C & 29°C, coupled with hot sticky nights it’s been difficult getting much done and getting much sleep.

The car has been back in the garage again, following the repair back in April which failed and was repaired again, well it’s failed again. They had the car for two days, and have replaced the failed part with one from a different manufacturer hoping that this will be a more long term fix. What’s not clear is whether this is just bad luck, a bad batch of the same part or something else. I’ll see what happens but I think I might have to consider a new car in the not too distant future. Not an expense that I need.

Spent the weekend moving furniture and doing some odd jobs for my Mum.

Work – A few things going on this week in terms of development work, but otherwise pretty quiet.

Allotment. – There has been no water at the allotment this week following a week. Not the best timing with the weather also being the hottest of the year, the high on the plot was 31°C. It came on briefly at the weekend, not sure whether that’s permanently or not. The rumours as to why it’s been off are pretty funny, but I’m not going to repeat them here; although they sound plausible I don’t know whether they are actually true.

Currently Reading

I had a few spare minutes in proximity to my local bookshop this week, and picked up a little impulse purchase – The Legend of Podkin One Ear [GoodReads], it had good reviews, but unfortunately I didn’t really enjoy it. It was okay, but nothing special.

Also reading The Dark Tower by Stephen King [GoodReads]- which I’m reading for an online group. This is the last in the Dark Tower series, and I’ve been reading this series for nearly a year now. Some have been better than others, but I glad I’ve been taking part in this online group.

The Week In Wildlife – In Pictures

The Dogometer– It’s been so hot this week, that we’ve had to employ the Dogometer, to keep a check on the temperature.

Heat Wave Common Sense – There have been a number of news stories and tales of common sense failure with regards to dress codes and the heatwave. Boys in Exeter went to school in skirts [LINK] to protest that they weren’t allowed to wear shorts, and a call centre worker was sent home for wearing shorts so came back in a dress [LINK]. There seems to have been a failure of common sense in some cases. I’m not sure why a call centre has such a strict dress code when their employees are never face to face with the public.

I can understand being appropriately dressed to come to work, but there does need to be a certain amount of managers discretion and common sense. I don’t miss having the “expectation” that I would always have to wear a tie for work. It didn’t make any difference to my performance, and I think being comfortable in what you’re wearing can make a difference in work output.

In the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire, it’s now emerging that there may be more tower blocks potentially clad in flammable materials [LINK]. It doesn’t seem clear yet whether this is a failure in building regulations i.e. that the material complies with the law as written, or the wrong material was used either accidentally or deliberately. Whatever the reason, there is unsurprisingly a lot of anger about it.