From the woollies and fires to decks you could fry an egg on

The photo below was taken on May the 20th when the Kogge I wrote about in my last post came to the harbour. When we went to visit it, we were wearing jerseys and coats and that evening we lit the fire it was so cold. Well, the next day everything changed, quite dramatically.

Suddenly, the cold air turned to warm, the wind wafted in from the south instead of the north, the sun came out and the world around us decided it was summer.  By the weekend, we were sweltering. Woollies went back in the cupboard and I had to rummage in the depth of my tee-shirt drawer for the colourful short-sleeved ones I'd put away last September. 

I love warm weather, but this sudden switch from cold to hot was a bit of a shock to our systems and the rhythms of our life. All of a sudden, I've been having to get up early to walk Zoe and do jobs outside before the heat makes it difficult. Having had a salutary lesson about skin cancer quite recently, I have become a bit less blasé about working long hours in the full sun. That said, daughter #1 took advantage of my little garden to do some en plein air sketching. I loved the results, which you might just be able to see if you click on the picture.

Better late than never, too, the poppies have exploded with such profusion it's quite glorious. The previous week there'd just been a smattering of them, but now they are everywhere in profuse abundance. I adore poppies, so I always take photos of them. The trouble is, it's never easy to tell which year is which when I browse through my poppy pics later on, but I think I'll recognise this year's; it's such a bumper crop!

Poppies apart, the great panel job is progressing slowly. The downside of boat work is that the window of opportunity is always so small when you have nowhere to escape, scrape and paint under cover. It's a question of doing what you can when the weather gods permit. This week, we've managed to replace two panels, which is a major advance on the previous efforts when we only managed one due to the incessant rain. Even so, we could have done more had it not been quite so hot. I know. I'm never satisfied, but some transition between arctic and tropical would have been nice.

Panel removed. That's the easy part.

Daughter 1 assisting with the placing of the new panel today.
For most of this operation we were both in the boat!

"Licensed to drill," so quipped my girl :)

Another member of the family who prefers the cooler temps is Zoe. The heat exhausts her, especially as her coat grows so fast in summer too. The thing is, she doesn't lose much hair and even though she moults a little, it's not enough to get rid of her dense curls. I trimmed her quite substantially a little over a week ago, but it's already grown since then. Walks are now early in the morning and after dinner in the evening, but for the time in between she mostly resembles a rather plush furry rug. 

Someone is finished by the heat.

But then things will probably change again soon if the forecast is to be believed, so no doubt I'll be giving you an update from a rains-soaked Rotterdam, which is where I have to go next week. Have a good weekend allemaal and enjoy whatever the season is bringing you!