hollyhocks

london 2.07pm 30C sunny friday 2018

 

 

Digital StillCamera

Digital StillCamera

does not feel that hot outside. i just came back from the library, and even though it says 30C now, i did not feel it was that hot. some days when it was below 30C you can feel it very badly, very sweaty, and the air has this oppressive feel to it, but today it was not so. perhaps the library was cool, and the bus was cool, and i was under the trees near the tate britain where the hollyhocks are. and traffic around here is very low.

in the past when i see people with curtains drawn, i used to think what pussies they are because it is never so hot that we want to keep out the sun warming the place up. but today i had to draw the curtains in my living room, to prevent the sun heating it up too much. so i have joined the ranks of the pussies who keep their curtains close. also, the bright sun coming in makes it really difficult to see my laptop screen.

i suppose we should all enjoy this heat, but i think too much of a good thing is not good. but whatever… life is what it is, and if it wants to make a heat wave over uk, so be it. 

32.1C sunny 4.58pm.

cannot quite believe my weather website saying it is 32.1C.added 9.16pm, it seems it hit 33C today

i was out just now, went to the asda just as an excuse to go out. it did not feel that hot. though there was a lot of glare from the sun reflecting off the walls of the buildings.

 

i got a pack of strawberries, asda was selling a lot of them,  but they were not very sweet.  those i bought were reduced from 98p to 69p for 300mg. the sales woman was just putting them out on display when i was there. that is why i decided to replace the one i got from the £1.09shelf for it. when i got back and ate them, they were still very good, not bruised or soft… i thought that by now they should have ripened a lot, but they were not sweet. there were lots of packs at unreduced price of £1.09p. they dont look bright red, so maybe not ripened fully yet.  added. 9.18pm. i saw an advert on tv just now saying they were £1.29p. so why the disparity with the actual price in the shop?

 i have thought there will be lots of summer fruits, like cherries, strawberries, raspberries, etc, glutting the market; but it is not so. or rather, only strawberries seem to be abundant. and if what i ate is typical, it is not sweet. i wonder why?

i have heard so much about english strawberries being small but sweet. but not the ones i ate today. perhaps it is not typical of the batch, or it might be too early to be picked. ah well, that is the thing about fruits. if you dont pick them early, they get too ripe when they arrive at the shops and they go all soft and blotchy and look too ugly.

long ago we used to go to the farms to pick strawberries, and i would pick and eat them… i think you are not supposed to do that. you are supposed to pick them and then have them weighed and you then buy them. but that time, i was new to uk, and so i thought that was the whole idea of it, wasn’t it? pay to go into the farm and eat as much as u like…now i realise it was not supposed to be like that, and i was glad i was not caught out and be scolded for it. haha. but perhaps in those days, things were cheaper, and what we paid to go in, paid for whatever we could eat as well. there were maize plants as well, and i remember the fresh corn eaten off the cob was so sweet. before that, i have never eaten fresh corn, having only eaten them when they are cooked. i never knew u can eat them raw.

i have fond memories of the fruit gluts that we can get in malaysia when the time for it comes round. like for eg, the durian glut, oh how we can gorge , an orgy of gorging on the fruit. or when it is rambutan season, or duku, langsat. and in times of old, mangosteens. the latter is no more now, gone are those happy days when mangosteens are plentiful. it is a sad fact, that only when it is over, and you look back on it, do u appreciate how good it was. during the time when it was abundant, i never realise how good it was, nor that it will be gone in future. i wonder what are the things now that we take for granted, which are abundantly available, will become so scarce that we wont be able to enjoy in future. 

and i noticed the £1 offer for the 1kg lancashire farm yogurt is now over, and they are selling for £1.40 now. well, all good things must come to an end i suppose. 

added. 9.36pm. you see what i mean when i say good things come to an end. i just got an email from talk talk, telling me that the free sim for my mobile phone where i got free calls will end 8 sept. if i still want it it will cost me £3 a month. unlike now when it is free to me. but i dont think i want to pay for it. even though they said they will give me 4G. it is 3G now. frankly i have no idea how much better it will be , as i dont know what the 4G means. but i dont make a lot of calls even now even thought it is free. i hardly use up the 200 mins i get free each month.  so no point i think.

i stick with talktalk because of the free broadband included in the package, and it is the cheapest package around at £20 a month. i am happy with that because the broadband allows me to access catch up tv, and hd and the free tv programs in hd. that is good enough for me, not forgetting it allows me to be online all the time on my laptop. its got to the stage now that i cannot do without broadband. it has become essential. i can remember in the past i would be saying broadband is not important and i can live without it. not anymore , i am hooked .

haha. i will miss the free calls on the phone, but they are not essential.