Hot

Plans to have lunch outside with friends today were thwarted by the hot weather so we retreated to eat in the cooler house after enjoying drinking and chatting outside under the shade of the sun parasol.
I have three thermometers scattered around the garden giving the temperatures inside the house and outside and today two of them recorded a maximum of 28.4C although they are in different parts of the garden. While they are not in absolutely ideal sites for official recording of weather statistics they give me an approximate idea of the current temperature and are the highest temps that I have seen since moving here three years ago. I have tried to find out official statistics for the area and the closest that I have found is over 10 miles away at the Botanic Gardens when 30C was recorded in August 1975 and in July 2009 when it reached 29.9C. Edinburgh's average maximum is 18C in July so it is no wonder that today crowds were flocking to Edinburgh's beach at Portobello and the seaside in East Lothian with many more regretting having to work in the heat. Even as I write at sunset it is still 22C; a temperature which is more pleasant to those of us unused to the heat.