Emz by the Thames

Gloomy, aye - but mild enough to get some things done outdoors, which is very useful.

Frost!!! Beautiful to look at, glistening in the morning sun....not so great when you have to scrape your car! Didn't think it would be the cold overnight.

Two lovely booms of thunder here, only the third time I've heard thunder this year and the first time it's very nearby! What a lunchtime treat!

Humidity 85% in here...I picked the wrong day to batchcook for Halloween. Dehumid appears to be doing nothing. Love the strong breeze though and fingers crossed for a storm in the early hours.

Paging Lassie...paging Lassie.....October Fog Index: start the count! OFI21: 1 11am and still foggy HIgh Wycombe. In fact, I can't see High Wycombe, which is no bad thing.

The weather has claimed Rock The Moor near Maidenhead with is a big 80s festival, which was cancelled at 9am a couple of hours before the gates were due to open. It had been postponed twice in the last 18 months due to Covid. I go every year and was looking forward to some live music as I haven't been to a festival for so long - but that's the issues with moving an outdoor event to October - the weather is so unpredictable. ..and the heating has just come on!

Well...the outdoor music festival I'm going to on Saturday afternoon is going to be interesting with all that rain forecast!! I'm hurriedly looking for a pac-a-mac is swift delivery... It's chilly this morning - first 'jumper to work' day of the autumn...and the end of getting the ironing board out as the shirts get packed away - hurrah.

We are in a bit of an odd situation where we have to sleep with the window wide open all night all year due to humidity issues in our tiny, crappy 80's build flat. No central heating either so I guess we are chillier than other people's bedrooms. I too am facing 'those' years soon - I'm wondering if I'll need a winter duvet at all!!

Always love a bit of early autumn sunshine, but I completely mangled 3 of my toes last week, so all I can do is admire the sun from the sofa - gutted! It was 7.9.c here late night - and that means Winter Duvet Night (always an exciting day maked with cocoa, fresh bedding and an early night in our sad, sad household!!!) is near. There is nothing like putting the winter duvet on, though. It's like sleeping in a cloud!!

Both Nightswimming and Find a River by REM are very 'autumn is arriving' songs.

The whole of Slowdive's Souvlaki album just makes me think of late autumn/early winter, they sound very 'seasonally'. As for the first warm, mellow evening in late spring/early summer, you can't beat this:

Quite a depressing evening on the allotment, I had to drive home and get a hoodie thanks to a chilly breeze and cloud! We have noticed that a lot of our veg isn't as sweet as it should be, such as beetroot and corn on the cob. I can only put this down to lack of sunshine. The pumpkins are almost ready for harvest as the vines started to die off in the cool and showery late July. And now the evening are really coming in. I don't feel like I've had a summer. There's whole zip bag of summer clothes that I haven't even opened this year.

Had my family down from the north all this week...and every photo I've taken is in cloudy gloom and we haven't sent a single evening outdoors. "Sad times" as my teenage niece would say. Meanwhile at the allotment, I've lost all my pumpkin and squashes overnight to some sort of blight or rot. Gutted. Never happened before. The plants love warmth and sun and the have really struggled this year because of the frequent showers and lack of hot sunshine.

Oh yes please. Comfortable sleeping temps, misty mornings, warm, sunny days, the air fragrant with the scent of berries and fruits baking gently in the sun, mellow evenings with beautiful sunsets....warm sea temps... Here's hoping....

I've......put the heating on. It's 14.c and wet outside and I can smell the mildew growing in here. There's damp washing on the rack and we've not had the heaters on for a couple of months. There seem to be little residual heat in the building, possibly because the nights have been cool. So yeah, cool, damp...click. So depressing for summer. I wouldn't mind so much except apart from a distant rumble last week - I've had no storms, either. Drab!

I appreciate it was nicer earlier today but right now, I've just got in, I'm going to head to my allotment and get something for tea...and I will come straight home again because it's not nice enough to sit out on the chairs and enjoy the weather. I've probably only had 4 or 5 of those balmy, sunny early evenings this whole spring and summer where I can just stroll leisurely around the allotments in t-shirt and shorts. It's just endless large clouds and the post-shower chill in the air. I don't feel like I've had a summer at all. And now the evenings are starting to come in and it's really noticeable that summer will soon be over. And every time I look at the temps...it's seemingly always 19.c! Pumpkins think it's already autumn and have started to mature and the vines are dying. And with nights dipping to almost single figures, who can blame them. I don't think the chilly spring helps in feeling depressed about the weather. Sorry for the whinge, I do depend on either nice or exciting weather as a mental pick-me-up quite a lot of the time and it's not really delivering!

Holy heck, that cell that went over Wycombe, loads of people stranded at the allotments because they'd walked there - lots of people having to break into other peoples polytunnels for shelter - it was madness. Big white splodge on the radar. Take a brolly with you today!

As we say at the allotments when it's windy in July - 'it's parallelogram time for the runner beans! Feel for anyone under canvas in the south tonight - a very best they'll get no sleep.

I think it just ducked into single figures overnight, I got up at 5am to close the window! What a difference from a week ago where me and my boyfriend took a picnic rug and our kindles to the bench by the river as the flat would not get below 27.c inside at night! I heard a distant, fleeting storm 5 or 6 miles away in Maidenhead yesterday but a wait for a overhead or very near goes on. The allotment has been changeable - some plants like the runners have appreciated all the rain and we have never had so many runners, but the cold spring and mediocre weather has made quite a lot of things slow to grow. For us to only just have had our first allotment salad in the last week of July is pretty unusual. The corn, squashes and pumpkins definitely look like they need more very sunny, warm days.

True that. Some people suggest air con - but where would we put it when we're already very overcrowded in here? Another thing about flats under 40 sqm is they are not equipped to deal with the drying of washing if there is no open access communal garden or balcony. This is turn affects air quality inside the flat making it too hot if you have a tumble dryer or damp and mouldy if you dry indoors in the winter or too dry if you have a dehumid on laundry setting which gives us a sore throat. But boil some pasta on a cold night at humidity will shoot up to 85 and the growing mould makes the flat smell like mushroom soup because our landlord does not believe in extractors. I am constantly juggling the air temps and humidity, not just because of the weather but also the washing and cooking too. I used to envy apartments in US sitcoms that had a laundrette in the basement. Sometimes, I dry my washing by hanging it in the polytunnel at the allotment!

A warning, really. On Tuesday I had a bit of a heat-health related incident. I'd had a fun birthday weekend at the beach and outdoors generally , and although I don't drink alcohol, sat in the shade and drank lots of squash, I still managed to get dehydrated. On Tuesday, I had loads of laundry to do. My flat is tiny and had no outdoor space and on a heat island surrounded by concrete and a 3 lane A road, and when it gets hot, it stays hot. I had a small tumble dryer on, my dehumidifier broke (flat has a humidity problem) and my darn neighbours were smoking below my window all day, meaning I had to shut it. As a result, I was doing hours lots of housework in 31.c indoors and with humidity of 78 and already dehydrated. I started overheating and shaking and suddenly felt really weak and dizzy. My boyfriend rushed home form work and drove me around in the car for half an hour with the air con on and I had a bottle of cold water. Gradually, I started to feel better but it was really frightening. I grew up partly in Saudi Arabia so have always been a bit complacent about heat. Don't be. I've always maintained that heat is harder to bear for people who live in flats and with climate change, this is only going to get worse.

A lot of cloud bubbling up now. Feels very oppressive.

Not a sausage here...just yet more endless humid greyness.

Oh I forgot about Epsom Downs, my grandad lived nearby and I used to call it Ups and Downs! According to Meto, a minimum of 6.c tonight. Unbelievable. I've put the windows back in the polytunnel for tonight. it's July next week!

It's notably cold...not sure if the heating is going to go on - but the temps are similar to the winter solstice in some places according to Meto - and some a fraction below! What a dismal day, I can't believe we've taken this week off! Currently taking bets as to whether we'll get single figures tonight. On a non-weather note, I see the Goodyear Blimp is coming to Kent and London next week, and as a kid, my Dad and I used to follow it around! There's no decent views of the London skyline from the Wycombe area, but can anyone recommend one in Berks/Surrey or Herts? Ta.