British summer weather ..

It finally rained a useful amount about 5pm here in Cheshire today.

However a friend told me it had poured with rain in her end of our village yesterday when it was thundering. We are talking about less than a mile away.
I am still hot now.

We have had 4 days of it in London. I would not mind a little rain so that I can forget about watering plants.

We've had no rain or hail here. Just sun and heat, heat and more heat.

My friend in South Africa says we're all wimps. As far as she's concerned 30 degrees is pleasant and anyway all her UK friends had been complaining that they wanted summer to arrive. I told her it was true that we wanted summer to arrive but we didn't want it all in one day.

Willow it`ll rain now!
I answered the phone this morning, one of those nuisance calls, it began "Now that the winter is here, isn`t it time to........." then I hung up, looking out of the window at blazing sunshine and feeling sweltered!

I've just been out to water the plants after waiting 2 days for the rain which hasn't arrived. It's much cooler though which is a relief!

It was really hot here on the Swiss/French border in the mountains- but it has jsut broken now- thunder and absolute downpour and related temp drop- from 34C to 21C. The countryside really needed it- hopefully back to sunshine tomorrow, but not quite as hot.

Dull here. Better tomorrow I hope

Bother! I was looking forward to a good storm, but they seem to have bypassed this part of Cheshire.

We had a terrific thunderstorm yesterday morning. It lasted for a good two hours and was very loud when very near. The rain was torrential, but we didn't have any hail.

Back to sunshine here in Suffolk, though not quite as hot as it has been.

I saw a fb thread the other day by a guy in Australia saying how he misses the English summer, it's the best day of the year.

Thus far we seem to have been bypassed by all the more 'apocalyptic' weather. There was thunder rumbling around yesterday but it bypassed us with only the fewest spots of rain. Clouding up very quickly at the moment though......

The dogs quite enjoyed going out once it stopped, especially the younger one. At least her being wet from hailstones was better than her newly acquired habit of jumping in the pond to cool down then attempting to rush through the house dripping wet!

Our cat, Jazz, figured she had the right idea about how to keep cool and didn't even flinch when the thunder started but wasn't too keen on the hailstones which was just as well as I needed to shut the window PDQ.