It is blindingly hot today...

...yet another day with intense blue skies and no clouds.

Painting from a ten minute You Tube video stareted at 5:30 am. it took me about 20 minutes...

But then I had to put parasols back up so I could paint later or sit on thatched swing.

One snapped off at the bottom...it was rusty. So duct tape (gaffer/duck whatever you call it), to strengthen the rest as best as possible, but it is now a very short parasol and I need to be a hobbit to get under it.

I do have another parasol but in the last few years lost the bottom pole to it. So this had been my short one...but I needed another normal height parasol...so what to use?

Couldn’t find anything. Then looked at the thing I use to polish my floors with...is it called a Swiffer? Except I never use it to polish floors. Floors don’t get polished in this household. Someone gave it me. Giving me something doesn’t mean I will use it...at least not for the purpose it was intended for...

So I thought this is a substantial pole. Managed to snap the bottom swiffer bit of after a lot of effort. Such a tiny bit of plastic to snap but it refused to give, until I got my big plumbers hammer.

Knackered so went in for a coffee...it was 6:30 a.m. I totally forget because I am up so early that the rest of the neighbourhood is still in the land of slumber...

Then came the marathon effort. Trying to fix the swiffer pole to the parasol pole. Using duct tape.

The result is more Heath Robinson than Heath Robinson...

But it is up. An hour later. I think I used two reels of Duct Tape for stability. Because it is a lot higher than a normal parasol. I am dreading going to buy some more because the guy in the shop says each time I go in, ‘What do you do with all this Duct Tape?’

I don’t know what he thinks, or where his imagination is going because I just give him a grin when he says that.

But the truth is that now I am a doddery old lady I cannot hold tools, turn screwdrivers etc any more, and Duct Tape gets used for everything...

Thank you for all your lovely comments recently and stars and faves.

Have a happy heatwave Monday.

It’s now 8:45 a.m. and I am going back to bed for a rest....