Emz by the Thames

I was chatting to my fellow allotment holders last night who said the same thing. I've only had my allotment two seasons but some have had their allotment for 20 years and they say autumn is coming early. And endless heatwave and pressed the fast forward button on some crops. Oh and autumn is clearly already here as I've thrown out the biggest spider I have ever seen yesterday. I saw it in the twilight of morning and thought it's body was a moth, that's how big it was!!

Well.... I know that acorns are 2 years in the making, so it could be a reflection of the the last 2/3 years of weather...but when people write off current nature happenings as something that happened in the past, I do always wonder if it's just simply part of a bigger nature/weather cycle and dismissing it as a sign of weather patterns in the past is too simplistic. In autumn 2016, the acorns were pretty normal sized, autumn 2017 they were larger and 2018 larger still. The only fact I know about larger acorns is that they produce taller seedlings. I don't know if that has any baring on anything. Might do Acorn Size Index as well as Coat Type Index... @lassie23 is there going to me be an October Fog Index this year?

It used to be a pretty good place in the 90's but for various reasons it's becoming a bit of a soulless dump. I don't even like it in the daytime, I've been abused and followed by aggressive beggars, many not local. Some poor nurse was killed sitting on a bench at lunchtime when she inadvertently found herself in the middle of a drug feud and got splashed with acid. I go shopping to Windsor now and don't go out into town in the evenings anymore. (to be fair, there's nowhere to go, the town has been successfully sanitised of dancing and music...unless you like theatre and I don't!) Anyway, here are the mega acorns from my allotment! (with £1 coin for scale). Perfect allotment weather yesterday but don't think I'll be digging today! I went to my Dad's yesterday evening but left the windows open as I had washing drying. When I got home after dark..the HEATING had come on! Brrrrr!!!

First chilly evening up the allotment yesterday evening, sat there with several gardeners and the odd robin discussing when it's no longer feasable to work on the allotment after work, the general consensus is that time is 4 weeks today. Makes me sad! I'm usually the first one to look forward to those hazy autumn days but this year I'm, dreading the dark evenings. I don't watch TV dramas and going into town is horrible these days so I don't have anything to do on dark evenings...apart from annoy the boyfriend when he's trying to play Elite Dangerous The lengthy heatwave has meant that for those who planted pumpkins at the earliest opportunity are seeing them ripen now. I don't quite know where I'm going to store 8 pumpkins for 8 weeks..especially as I don't know where I'll be living in 8 weeks! The other thing I have noticed is the size of the acorns this year - like acorns on steroids, I'll photograph them tomorrow.

Packing up the flat ready to go as we exchange in a couple of weeks. Still can't find anywhere to rent or buy with weeks to go which is quite frightening, do the government understand how much inflated house prices affect the quality of life for ordinary folk?. Good lord, the cr*p you find in cupboards..were did that Norwegian troll tooth-pick holder come from????? And why have we taken on a second allotment when we're so busy?? Anyway, it's a lovely day...perfect for doing this sort of thing - fair and 20.c. There's an autumnal feel to the mornings now. Anyone have any thoughts about how early September will pan out weatherwise?I do wonder what winter will be like, we've had some extremes this year for sure. Here's my Emir musk melon btw, unsure when it will be ripe but leaving it till it gets a bit more of a rough skin. Back to it...pthttthtththh.

This time of year, the light change in the evenings seems so rapid. At my location sunset tonight was 8.30pm but it will be 7.52pm by the end of the month, that's some leap in just over a fortnight. It does catch you out, I've been watering my allotment at 9.15pm for ages - went to put my coat on last night to do the same and it was dark!

It's 13.c!! A real shock to the system! I just got my coat out of storage - that's how cold I feel! Mind you,the heavy rain is making it feel colder than it really is.

Another hot one today, had a fab day in Cambridge yesterday, but the heat was inescapable, even by the river Cam! Up by the Ouse a few miles away in Hemmingford Grey though...wow, what a beautiful river, so slow and clear and the perfect place to be when it's 29.c. There and back though, miles and miles of yellow crops and bright blue skies for miles and miles, stunning. Would love a storm tomorrow as watering the allotment has become a full-time job this summer!

Some nice weather earlier this week - but today is one of many this summer where productivity is way down due to the heat. I was going to go to Sainsburys just now...but it's 50.c in my car!!! My fault for having a 20 year old Mx5 with no air con, just a sort of cool fan that resembled a warm hairdryer!! Sill, I have so many cucumbers and toms that I could open a greengrocers. And my melons are about the size of a grapefruit currently, oh matron. The warm summer has hastened the maturing of some things - all my squash are ready and I'm really not in the mood for roasty/soupy things, I'll just have to take them to my dad's for storage.

Bit of a gardening dilemma, I've learned this year that seeds don't germinate in a heatwave as the soil dries out too quickly - but I've got autumn veg and flowers seeds that should have been sown late July. So would anyone like to take an educated guess as to when the upcoming heatwave might subside? Lovely temps this morning, cool and sunny, perfect for a quick run.

Huge 30ft bough fell off a tree in the car park yesterday in the wind, the bough looked fine/healthy to me and was quite high up in the tree so it was a surprise to see it fall. Combo of dry conditions/gusts like the others I guess. Sun just starting to pop out there after a drizzly morning. Nice to have the tumble drier on this morning, an attempt to dry towels in Friday was abandoned after the temp in the flat rocketed with the drier on! I'm so glad this is my last summer in a flat. I'm so not done with summer, but I can't say I want 30+ again as it's making me constantly lethargic.

The wind was annoying yesterday, abandoned sowing autumn veg seed as the seeds kept blowing out of my hand! And this morning I had to turn the lights on to make breakfast...quite a shock to the system. However, this cool shot is lovely and much needed, it's nice to have other weather.

The accumulative effect of days of heat in our block of flats (which is surrounded by an arterial A road/car park and other buildings on 3 sides which seem to obsorb so much heat) means it's heated up inside the flat and stayed hot. It's 30.c inside now and only dipped to 28.5c overnight. I'm looking forward to sleeping in the bed rather than on it. I've zoomed in and the edge of the warning line for storms is literally overhead...so I don't know whether to get excited or not. Been surprisingly ok in this latest heatwave, I think the trick is to do things more slowly and drink a third more water than you normally do.

Rushing around from solicitors to mortgage advisors to house viewings. It's really not pleasant to be running around here there and everywhere in this heat. Glugging so much water but still overheating. Ermm..why is the net weather 10 day showing almost 30cms of rain on Friday!!!

For the second time in a week, a large tree has fallen and blocked the A40. I'm pretty certain the very dry ground is weakening them. Going dark here,some clouds of interest..and I've got a thumping headache!!

Sun has just come out - grot clearing.

Go to Hobbycraft, they have all their xmas card making stuff out already!

A thunderstorm on Friday would be smashing. Disappointing amount of cloud today, meh!

My heat tolerance is no non-existent now....and I grew up in Saudi Arabia! But yes, I prefer summers where you can get things done with a plume or three to give us some belting heat. This heatwaves just makes me tired and dehydrated all the time. I must admit I don't know what bearing this hot summer will have on the coming autumn. Nature likes a balance, so I'm going for a rainy, cold one.

(It's not 100% accurate, but..) temps says 27.c here at 10.30am. But there are also large patches of dark cloud drifting over, in fact some very watcheable clouds hereabouts. But crumbs, it's oppressive to do manual work in. I'm going to do a storm dance, s*d, it.

Lovely morning but unable to work the land in the afternoon too hot for about the 4 weekend in row. Pumpkins are doing brilliantly as are cucumbers - the plants are producing so many as they love it hot and sunny. On the down side, late summer crops aren't germinating, it's too hot and dry despite daily waterings. I'm unfortunate enough to live in High Wycombe (but not for much longer!!) and lets just say the pavements in the town centre urgently need heavy rainfall to clean them.

Combines in the field bringing the harvest in, must be 3 weeks early due to heatwave! It's proper scorchio, scorchio out there, I think 32.c before the day is out. We be glad for cold drink and the big game at 3pm.

Although high temps pose a danger no matter how short the period of hot weather, I do think there is a flaw in the calculations used for these heat health watches. Many people are fine with 30.c or so for 3 or 4 day but if you have weeks on end of high 20s to low 30s, then that has quite a cumulative effect on sleep quality, dehydration levels, appetite etc. Had tix to BST festival today in Hyde park but I sold them as we are too busy with our flat move. Kind of glad really as don't fancy 8 hours sat in Hyde Park in 31.c

Moaning minnie here...but the mod thread is morphing into the ramp thread a bit. What day of the so-called heatwave is this??? 10? I'm feeling dehydrated all the time despite glugging water all day and you can only really work on the allotment after 7pm.

So, so lovely to be rained on at my allotment just now, that wet ground smell!! About 5 minutes of moderate to heavy rain, enough to make a few puddles.