Not all that contrary, but pleased with my garden…

The hot weather is back again, and I know how lucky I am because there’s a little tiny pink spot on the BBC’s weather map, right over our location that shows that the heat increase attributed to global warming hasn’t applied here, so we’re 4-5c cooler than most places.

It’s nothing spooky, promise. It’s just that we live on a peninsula, even if it isn’t the posh one so we have a cooling breeze from the sea blowing across from 3 directions. Not only is it cooling, but my washing dries beautifully unless there’s a north wind, which is unusual. The posh one is Sandbanks, and it seems to be compulsory for reporters to call it the Millionaire’s Playground because it’s a very expensive place to buy property. I’m not one of those, but we go there too. Just not with weather like this because I don’t like crowded beaches, overflowing loos and litter. Car park queues don’t do it for me either.

Instead, I walk down to Harbourside, and this was the beach I sat on on Wednesday! Yes, it’s small, but it was mine, mine, all mine, she gloats.

It’s Friday as I type this, and it has been too hot to be comfortable walking for a couple of days, so instead I was outside in the garden in the cool early morning, tidying and clearing and reorganising. This picture here is what I call the sunken garden, if I feel posh because it’s down a step from the back door and then back up a step to go into the main garden. It’s a lovely bit of the garden because it’s enclosed on three sides by walls, so I suppose I could also call it a walled garden, and if you leave the back door open, then you can get a decent internet signal so I can also call it my summer office. It’s tough being a writer, isn’t it?

As I type this, it’s early afternoon and I can feel the cooling wind and see the washing blowing in the breeze while pretty much the rest of the UK swelters. I have a cold drink beside me, plans to put up a butterfly feeder in the trees because I like butterflies, and I’m enjoying the peace. Best of all, all I bought to do this are the pretty glass pebbles that stop water evaporating and the wet getting to the sailboats. I’m doing this a little early because I’ve just finished the next draft of a new Lucy Williams script and can relax because I’m ahead of schedule. Soon, I shall get started on the next edit of ‘A Gift for Living’, which is February’s Harbourside, and I’m thinking ahead about what’ll be the final book in that series, because the characters’ stories will have been told. Windy Bay is opening up more and more in my mind, so I’m planning to do an extra book in that series instead, but I needed to find the sort of happy ending that Laura Hardisty wanted.

So much love to all of you from hot but not unbearably hot and breezy Poole. I’ve spent the morning watching gorgeous men windsurfing in my imagination, and when it cools again next week, I shall go and watch them in real life, purely for your sake, you understand, because it’s so important to get the details right, isn't it?