In case it's lost on you, the title of this post is the traditional tabloid front-page splash headline to mark a couple of days of hot weather in a typically wet and mild British summer. But so far this year we have had a succession of five designated "heatwaves", and most of the UK is now officially in drought. This is distinctly not normal. If I hear another idiot say, "If this is climate change, bring it on!", I will... Well, let's not be specific. We don't want "premeditation" added to the charge sheet.
Never mind two days of "scorcher" somewhere in mid-August, it has now been too hot and too dry since May, with no end in sight. I sat my university final exams in the famously hot and dry summer of 1976 – eight (or was it nine?) three-hour papers sweltering in "subfusc" (a black suit with white tie, plus academic cap and gown) – and it was nothing like as bad as this, and all I have to do now is write the odd blog post and venture out for a walk and a bit of shopping in shorts and sandals. For the first time ever I am using sunscreen: that's how bad it is. Others have it far worse, of course: it's hard to imagine losing your entire home and belongings to a wildfire, especially in the knowledge that it was sparked by irresponsible or even deliberate behaviour.
These harshly bright and contrasty conditions are never ideal for photography and, besides, who wants to lug a camera around in such heat for essentially unrewarding results? This is where a phone comes into its own and, even on those occasions when I did actually put a camera in my bag, it was the phone I pulled out of my pocket more often than not. I think you'd be hard-pressed to tell which were taken with which, though, in this little gallery of Summer So Far photographs.
West Bexington, Dorset
Bristol Downs, green grass reduced to felted straw
Fishing on Clevedon Pier, North Somerset
Clevedon Pier
Jubilee Gardens, Belvedere Road, London
Forde Abbey, Dorset
Morcombelake, Dorset
Chesil Beach from Abbotsbury Tropical Gardens
(and, yes, the sea really was that amazing Mediterranean colour)
St. Catherine's Chapel from Abbotsbury Tropical Gardens
Thanks, but when I said it's so hot I fancy a cone...
(Abbotsbury Gardens)
Southern view from our Bristol flat's kitchen
Slightly later western view from the kitchen
(Get on with the cooking, Mike, you can't eat gaudy sunsets...)
On the early evening of 12th August we had the very rare spectacle of an almost complete solar eclipse (92.55% in Southampton). There won't be another one here for 80 years; I doubt I'll be very interested by then. TBH a partial eclipse is a fairly underwhelming spectacle, anyway, unless you're properly set up and situated to see the solar disc being covered up without permanently damaging your eyesight, especially when it's happening low in the sky, not long before sunset. It occurred to me to wonder how many folk were walking around with impaired vision in ancient times, having gazed for far too long at the uncanny solar spectacle taking place overhead. I was also surprised by how few commentators remarked on the absurdly mind-blowing coincidence that the moon and sun are exactly the same size when observed from our planet. I mean... Wow, WTF, man?
But, as it happened, we didn't have to go far to see what was going on in a surprising and moderately spectacular fashion. In fact, we simply stepped outside the front door and gazed at the walls of the houses on the opposite side of the road, where multiple images of the sun were being pinholed and projected by the leaves on the trees behind our house.
No cardboard, sticky tape, or mirrors required. Unlike our eclipse craft project last time round, on holiday in Norfolk in August 1999. Happy days!
image: The National Archives, cat. ref. MFQ 1/712
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