Bloomin dahlias

The spell of settled fine, warm weather continues in the South East, up to 16C today in the sunshine this afternoon. Sweated away on the allotment tidying up beds, pruning and harvesting - apples, swede, carrots, the last three courgettes. Sweated away in the the pool and the gym this morning too.

I had a notion that these warm lingering summers had a name. We all know about Indian Summers but I thought I'd heard of more precise names. A quick check on the net revealed that St Luke's Little Summer can occur from 18th, St. Luke's Feast Day, to the end of October. Which is exactly where we are now. Seems like quite a few of the Saints have weather phenomena named after them often associated with that Saint's Feast Day. For instance: November 11th (St.Martin) “If the ice on St.Martin’s Day will bear a duck, there will be none that will bear a goose all winter.”