That Was a Nice Summer...

   Crikey. Okay, so, I don't know where you're reading this from, but England has just had its summer. 20 C is positively tropical, and I can only just handle that, but this past week has seen highs of 33 C, locally. It's been awful.
   I'm sure many of you are scoffing at this, but it all comes down to what you're used to, and in England, we don't really get high temperatures, especially in the south west. So going from 20 C to 31 C literally overnight was a shock. Fans have been on through the night, ice cream has become a (welcome) daily necessity, and I've been drinking about 3.5 litres a day. Fortunately, I knock my exercise out in the mornings, so it's still comparatively cool and windows open and fans on are enough, even to see me through PIIT 28. But Seeg exercises in the afternoon and has had to skip a couple. I can't blame him. I've struggled with my shop - putting tiny creatures into tiny jars is fiddly at the best of times, but trying to do it at 5pm when you're hot and already frustrated is just impossible.

   The upside is, though, despite how difficult putting jewellery together has been, I've not been otherwise hindered. I've been working on a new jewellery collection for the summer and I'm totally on schedule with it (hoping to release it early July), and I've been doing some amazing work redrafting my book. Last week I got 11 chapters done rather than my average of 5, which gave me such a sense of accomplishment, and while I had music stuck in my head on Monday that totally blocked my concentration, I'm more or less keeping up momentum despite book work being done on an evening when the temperatures have been at their worst. Fortunately that means it's also been too hot for idiots to go out into the park and play loud, awful music until midnight, which blocks my work because of synaesthesia, and because writing doesn't require much movement, I'm free to sit down, stick a fan in my face and work for 5 hours until bed time.
   Speaking of which, I know it was trending, but I've not actually had much trouble sleeping. The only issue has been having to have the curtains open through the night to get air flowing, because with the early sunrise, by body is a bit quick to decide it's time to wake up. 5am is too soon. I don't care if it's light out.

   Who knows? Perhaps this heatwave would have been worse had my attention not been so focused. I certainly had plenty to take my mind off of it. And Seeg has just picked up Assassin's Creed Black Flag again, and its focus in the tropics has certainly felt appropriate.
  But I'm looking forward to returning to lovely English weather - clouds, drizzle and wind - and perhaps another week of summer a month or so down the line. Because that's more or less how it goes.