Something comes over the British when the sun shines. Moods are elevated, clothes are reduced in weight and waters are plunged into. It's brilliant. Thursday of this week recorded the warmest April day since records began - 23.5 degrees. This might seem unimportant until you appreciate that three years ago, on the same day, Britain was covered in thick snow. So, this week, I joined the other short-wearing, milky-skinned and thinkers that summer had arrived, for a bun fight at B&Q to buy bedding plants, rose bushes, tomato plants and bags of compost. We all smiled at each other, pretended not to notice each others' naff Maori, or gaelic or Chinese-influenced tattoos poking out from ill-fitting leisure wear, and just enjoyed the warm weather. Being part Aussies, we, of course, had to buy a gas barbeque. We can't do charcoal. An afternoon and a morning passed while Rob assembled our new flimsy purchase and we christened it today with the help of our neighbours Roger and Janice, a few hundred weight of chicken, corn cobs, peppers, haloumi and 4 blankets that had to be distributed by 5.30pm because it was too cold to sit outside anymore. The evening ended with Rob lighting the fire so we could all feel our limbs again.
Also this week I dug a second, smaller, garden bed intended to be our vegetable patch. One of the things I looked forward to most when we planned our move back to the UK was having a go at growing our own veg, and keeping a well-planted garden, something we were very successful at in our big garden in Islington, but that we failed miserably at in Sydney. Everything we tried to grow that wasn't remotely tropical or heat resistant ended up fried, roots boiled to death. Yesterday and this morning I have planted tomato plants, raspberry vines and carrots. It's not summer yet, but we're getting there.
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