Too Darn Hot

Yet another 'hot' blog post title! Very appropriate, with the weather being so warm. Are we in a heatwave, and, will this title be redundant by the time I have finished writing it in a few days? Who knows, but with British weather so unpredictable, anything is possible. 'Too Darn Hot' is the title of a song in the musical 'Kiss Me, Kate.' I watched a recording of the 2019 production on the streaming service Broadway HD. It's one of those shows I have wanted to see for a long time. I know most of the songs and vaguely know the story, based loosely on Shakespeare's 'Taming of The Shrew', but up unit last weekend when I watched it, I had never seen a stage version. I know there is a film version, but I'm not a fan. It's one of those films where the colour looks over-saturated and it was made in 3D (Not sure about that, but I have a sneaking feeling.), so there's a lot of scenes where it's been set up to have things coming close to the camera, some things thrown to help with the 3D effect. I think it was a gimmick because TV had become available in everyone's home, Stateside, and in Britain, and it was done in an attempt to lure audiences away from the 'square box' in the corner of the room. The film 'South Pacific' is filmed in awful garish Technicolorr® which is plain awful, like one of those photographs you sometimes see which are monochrome but have had colour added. It just looks over-cooked, a bit like how colour television could be when it was introduced in the early 1970s. My father was forever fiddling with the first set we had, usually making the picture look dreadful. It would have been great to watch a programme with him forever altering the colour.

Sunday. 7 a.m. It's hot, and the sun has hardly risen over the horizon. We went out around 6.15. I didn't wake up as early as I usually do, but what does it matter?

The kitchen is hotter than ever. I won't be doing any baking for a while, that is, not until this heat is less intense. It's not made any better when the outside temperature is so high. Apart from anything else, it would make cooking considerably more difficult, particularly with ingredients such as butter, and with the oven on, even more, an impossible environment to work in. I will wait until later in the week and then have a go with scones, but this time I will make twice the amount of ingredients and use a larger cutter and see what a difference it makes. Those scones I made yesterday were a success and tasted excellent. I think even Mary Berry would have been impressed. Good texture, even bakes, good distribution of fruit, and delicious, even though I say so myself. And, dare I say it, no soggy bottoms!

The cough seems to be easing. I reckon the confounded medication which was causing the problem is working its way out of my system. I shall remain at home and won't go to church, but watch the service online as I did last year. 

Later. I have to clear out of the way as we walk down towards Oldbrook Green this morning. A Runner wasn't going to get out of my way and then, further round the path on the Green, a cyclist came up behind me and tinkled her bell, making me almost jump out of my skin. Far enough, I was warned, but I wasn't expecting it. Quite hot so we didn't walk the entire circuit of the Green and came back. I have my electric fan on to cool the lounge down. Even with the windows open, the place is still warm. The kitchen is excessively warm, as I've mentioned before, and with the window open, only slightly, because you can't open any of the windows fully, no doubt because the Council thinks the tenants who live in Dexter House have a habit of falling out, or, for that matter, let people climb in. It was the same in Milton Keynes Hospital when Carol was a patient. Even in the hottest weather, it's virtually impossible to get a draught to cool the place sufficiently. They did bring in portable air conditioning units, which is what's needed here, but I doubt they'd even consider installing them.

Later. As usual, absolutely nothing worth watching on broadcast television. Any more football and I think I shall ask for a refund of my television licence. The BBC seems obsessed with the wretched game. I could go on in this mode, but I won't. Otherwise, it will turn into a rant.

After some consideration as what to watch, I turned to streaming service Broadway HD and watched the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre production of 'Into The Woods.' Stephen Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics and James Lapine wrote the book. I'm a bit of a Sondheim fan, His shows are anything if not inventive and imaginative, and this is very imaginative. Not sure it's his most successful on its original outing, but it seems to have become quite popular and might even be regarded as having something of a cult following. This production has an interesting staging design, multi-storied if that's the correct term. In fact, thinking about it, the plot is 'multi-storied in the sense that it intercuts several well know fairy-stories by The Brothers Grimm.

A Tropical Heatwave

I just have to sing the song 'Heatwave' from some musical or other, or 'Too Darn Hot' from perhaps the best-ever musical, 'Kiss Me Kate.' It's because we're enjoying a heatwave at the moment. I love it warm and sunny, but it's been far too hot. With a heart condition I have to be careful in sunshine. It can be quite dangerous. Likewise, Carol, with her health condition. Having been on chemotherapy for over six months too much sunshine can be just as dangerous for her as it can be for me. I don't want to complain about the warm weather. We don't get much decent weather as it is, and considering what we've had to go through during the past year.

It's been a really hot and sticky few nights. Even with the window open in the bedroom and an electric fan on at full blast, it's been rather difficult to sleep. Then you get extraneous sounds coming into the house, adding to further difficulties sleeping. It gets light early, the dawn chorus. Boy, can those little critters half sing? I don't think they sleep. A real racket. No wonder I wake up early in the summer months.

I've continued with the clearing of the brambles and other overgrown plantlife in our garden, such as it is. I did some more work on it early this morning, as it was over-cast at around 7.30. I was determined to get more done as a lot of the stuff I managed to grub out and cut back had gone in our Wheely bin and the rubbish is collected on a Wednesday morning. I had to bring it through the house as we don't have a side gate which would obviously make life easier. The space where the gate should be had to be blocked up when the fence was repaired and it would cost at least £150 to have a new gate put in. Our lovely landlord wouldn't spend out on having this done, I am sure. But it would make our lives easier if we could just push the bin round to the front of the house for collection by the Council workmen. I'm not sure whether they take this every week. I have a feeling it's only taken every fortnight because when I put it out a couple of weeks ago it was either forgotten or ignored by the Council workmen. I have no idea when it's supposed to be taken. But it was taken and emptied early this morning. Which means I can now fill it up again. With more garden waste.

I've been looking for new shoes. I went on line as I wanted something like a trainer but made of leather. Also, with substantial soles, so I don't feel gravel or whatever through them. On using Google I went on the Sports Direct site and found some Sketchers, a lightweight sort of shoe with a more substantial sole. When we went to Waterperry Gardens the other week, no sooner had we parked the car and were walking towards the entrance, across gravel, I could feel the gravel through the soles of my current pair of Adidas trainers. Not good. They are still in good condition. Since I was at school I have always kept shoes I own and wear clean. I use treatment to keep them waterproof and make sure they are polished or at least wiped clean. I don't suppose today's children have to worry about their shoes being cleaned like I did when I was at school. They should do. Having a sort of sense of personal pride should surely be instilled into the younger generation.

I digress. Never mind. Anyway, as I say, I found what I wanted on the Sports Direct website. I could have bought them through the website, but really wanted to try them on. Which you obviously can't do from a website. I could have bought them and tried them on, not liked them, for whatever reason and then had to send them back, which I didn't fancy doing. So on Monday we drove to the retail park at Bletchley and had a look at their vast selection. I found what I was looking for and then tried them on. A very helpful lady assistant got me the second shoe (a size 10 1/2, which I found to be slightly too large. I take a 10. When she came back with the size 10 pair I tried them on and they were perfect, so I decided to buy them, together with a shoe-care kit comprising special 'rain and stain' protector as well as instant cleaning spray.

We went to Frost's garden centre in Woburn Sands this morning. Carol had another scan this afternoon at the hospital and couldn't eat after 2 p.m. We had lattes and really fantastic scones, jam and cream. These scones are larger and far tastier than the average and are to be recommended. Also had a quick browse before we went home.

We decided to drive to the hospital for Carol's scan appointment. We could have walked, but, as it was so hot, it seemed a better idea to go in the car. On getting in the car, which had been standing on the drive all day in the full force of the sun, we discovered it to be extremely hot, rather like sitting in an oven (not that either of us has done such a thing.) I had an idea it wasn't as hot as the previous day, which was supposed to have been the hottest day this year, according to the weather forecast on BBC Breakfast this morning. Anyway, we drove round to the hospital and then had to park outside the scanning department which fortunately has several dedicated parking spaces for patients. I wasn't over-pleased that we had to park on a sloping piece of tarmac, so trusted that Carol had successfully applied the car's brakes, otherwise the car would have rolled forward and crashed through the scanning unit's glass facade. The unit was running approximately 20 minutes late. No reason given, but at least the staff on reception apologised. No doubt this was due to patients being bought in from the hospital wards to be scanned. Carol was soon taken off to be scanned and I was left to read the magazines in the waiting area. It was hot in the waiting area, but the staff closed the blinds and the place soon cooled down. About 45 minutes later Carol returned, the scan having been done, and she had to sit for 15 further minutes as she had a cannula in her arm. They put some sort of dye into the patient's arm (possibly radioactive? I don't know.) and eventually it was taken out by the nurse and we returned home, having had to make a somewhat difficult reverse out of the parking space outside the unit.