AderynCoch

The M6 near Warrington was carnage yesterday afternoon. Spray everywhere and very poor visibility. Things cleared up very quickly approaching Manchester Airport though; in fact the road wasn't even wet.

31C and sunny today.

Beautiful day. Been enjoying some cold beer in Prescot.

Cloudy this morning but it's clear blue skies this afternoon. Crappy temperatures over the past week but the only really rubbish day was Saturday. There's been a bit of overnight rain at times but that's about it.

A rubbish year in full. No thanks! Today was quite sunny here though it clouded over in the evening. Tomorrow doesn't look too bad either. Disappointing temperatures though. I'm not looking forward to Saturday either!

Turned out to be a nice day here. Sunny with a high of 20C. Meanwhile in Bratislava a high of 21C with heavy rain. Very poor there for high summer. I managed to enjoy the last nice day there for a while yesterday before flying out.

Back in the hood. I was expecting worse weather than this:

I'm back in Britain and... the sun is out!

You can all blame me. I'm coming to Blighty on Monday for two weeks so of course we can write the first half of August off. I feel a bit dirty admitting it but until this week I was kind of glad your weather was so cool and unsettled, because it obviously meant the pattern would change when I arrived - well obviously not! I should know by now that Sod's Law reigns supreme when it comes to the weather. If the pattern is favourable it will change; if unfavourable it will go on seemingly forever! To be fair, since I moved to Slovakia summer visits to Britain haven't been bad at all. I suppose that had to end this time round! Also, I seem to be escaping Bratislava just before the weather turns cooler and more unsettled here.

That's crazy! I wonder if that was a derecho.

Set to classical music. Looks awesome right now:

29c and sunny at 1pm. Last night's minimum was 23c. I'll go now...

I get you. I'm usually okay sleeping when it's warm but at the moment it's just ridiculous. I could just sleep with the fan next to my bed (as I did often in a previous abode). The absolute worst was on holiday in Greece when I was a kid. Me and my brother were up all night because we couldn't sleep, even after pouring water on ourselves. It was only May as well.

I know, don't worry. But seriously, every yin has its yang and stuffy nights in buildings designed to keep out winter cold is definitely a yang (or is it a yin?).

I'm sure you'd prefer higher outdoor temperatures but surely not 30C indoors? Take the rough with the smooth.

Still 25.5C at 1am at a local station. The airport is "only" 23C. 30C inside. Another glass of wine and I might be able to sleep!

Yeah winter was really frustrating (muddy with cold rain), spring was cold (seems to happen every year now) and summer took seemingly forever to get going. But things are better now. I'll be in Britain for the first two weeks of August so I hope things will have changed by then!

No complaints from me so far this July. 33C here today. Spent the afternoon at the lake:

Rather moths than mosquitoes...

I can see this beast to the south of me: https://www.webcamtaxi.com/en/hungary/gyor-moson-sopron/main-square-sopron.html

Warm (definitely shorts temperature for me) but not hot.

A tough night's sleep here. A few stations locally stayed above 24C all night, which is very noteworthy for June. Check this out though:

29C

Yeah, the mountains up north are spectacular. It's just the Little Carpathian hills around Bratislava (up to 700m or so) but they're still very nice. Having them on my doorstep is one of the best things about living here. The Viennese Alps are also not far away (visible on a clear day along with Vienna itself). My Slovak's pretty decent but it really should be better after living here for so long. The problem is people often just want to reply in English when they clock that you're foreign. I might just go along to the post office every day to practice, as nobody speaks English there!

I've been living here since 2017 (though it doesn't feel that long!). Summer's not usually that uncomfortable when you're outside sitting in the shade but indoors can be pretty torrid without a/c. The buildings here are largely designed to keep out the winter cold - I actually managed to get through the whole of last winter without using any heating at all - so you can imagine what 30+C days and 20+C nights feel like. Some nights it's impossible to sleep without a fan next to your bed. That said, a/c is now common in public buildings and on public transport. Bratislava is a decent place to visit but it's a lot smaller than Prague, Vienna and Budapest so one shouldn't use those cities as a yardstick. Conversely, I first visited Bratislava when I was living in a small city called Žilina in the north of Slovakia and it felt like Tokyo in comparison!