Our heatwave is well and truly over, not that it waved that much up here. In fact our wave started at 8am Thursday morning and finished at 6.15pm Thursday night. It was still uncomfortably warm, but I don’t call raining in hot weather a heat wave. After a glorious blue sky day we decided to BBQ for our evening meal. The weather forecast said thundery stuff would happen at 8pm so we figured we’d still have a nice ODEE (outdoor eating experience). But as mentioned, come 6.10 pm…
We went indoors, and finished everything off in the microwave! 
It has continued to rain ever since, with the odd break here and there. But back to heatwave day, whilst I was photographing my G&T for my daily shot, I felt a little prickle on my arm, but was so engrossed in photographing that it kind of didn’t register properly in my brain and I ignored it. Eventually it became a really sharp pain and I stopped to look and saw a strange black thing where the pain was. I brushed it off me and saw a teeny tiny red bite mark, but thought no more about it. Today – 2 days later, the area around the bite has swollen up, hurts to touch and is unbearably itchy.
all day I’ve been alternating rubbing in Savlon, Germolene and wrapping it in an ice pack, fingers xt it’s better tomorrow I haven’t seen another bug like it, but that’s a vicious slow release poison that ought to be harnessed by the military!
You may remember on day 200 I posted a shot of my brand new glorious sunflower. I put it in the sunniest position in the garden as instructed by the little ticket that came with it ,kept it watered and it’s been doing really well. Apparently though, I appear to have purchased the only sunflower in the world that cannot cope with one day of sun! and by the end of Thursday…
To add insult to injury, the sunflower leaves have been eaten as if by a giant vegetarian, but when I examined it closely I found…
But it’s not all doom and gloom, today saw the arrival of my new lens, a 16mm f2.8 and if it ever stops raining I’ll go out and take some pictures with it!
Stuff I’ve seen since the last Towers Tales ~ Captain Marvel! That was a cool movie and Brie Larson unexpectedly did a great job, even Phil liked it. A bit.
We’ve been watching Catch 22, the last episode in the series was on Heatwave day and what a great series it’s been. Notoriously difficult to convert from the book to a movie.. (it was actually the 8th most successful movie at the U.S. box office in 1970 in spite of being considered a flop)… the series is beautifully filmed in vintage tones resembling Kodakchrome film it’s funny and dark, and everyone in it is acting their socks off.
Talking of funny and dark, I started watching the new Amazon series ‘The Boys’ last night on Amazon Prime. I’d read it was about superheroes and as Mr.Fraggle is on night shift I sat myself down with a glass of wine prepared for acts of derring doo as per Marvel. Boy was I in for a shock! Gone are the high minded ethics of Captain Marvel and his crew, here we have cocaine snorting, orgy partaking, sexual coercion making ‘Supes’ as they are called, and there are so many that there’s a corporation, “Voight” (headed up by actress Elizabeth Shue (who is excellent and leaking breast milk 😀 ) with the top 7 Supes being the crew all other Supes want to be part of. ‘The Boys’ refers to the disparate group of vigilantes who want to take the corrupt Supes down. The script is funny, dark and clever and the actors are knocking it out of the park. I think this will appeal to all those who are fed up with or don’t like the overload of superhero movies we are currently undergoing, as well as those of us that are Marvel/ DC fans. Incidentally it is based on a comic book series published in 2006.
3 hrs later. There’ll be a part 2 tomorrow as I had a weird computer thang happen before I’d finished this post!
Fraggle's Otherverse 
Ooh! That looks like a nasty sting/bite! I hope it’s gone tomorrow. And your poor sunflower. That photo is so sad. And finally, I’m so glad you’re enjoying The Boys. I’ve been hearing great things and I’m looking forward to watching it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Be prepared to be a bit shocked 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hope the bite is okay.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, it’s getting better.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well! You are managing to slog though that heat wave in quite a bit of style. Here, we close doors and windows to keep out the light and hot air, turn on all the ceiling fans, and live in a house of gloom. It’s awful. Then when it gets to be too much, I go out in the shade of the hot patio, listen to an audio book, and blob in the dry heat of the day, and emerge considerably happier and hotter. No troglodytism here!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think if we had prolonged episodes we’d deal with it better.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Probably. I have had heat exhaustion which is no fun, like having a bad flu. How hot was it?
LikeLiked by 1 person
30C, we’re not used to it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Even here in SoCal that is warmish for me where I live – we have been closer to 36-38 of late, but it has been much worse. We had a cool winter and are having a coolish summer. At least our humidity is low – more chance of fires, of course – but damp heat is awful. Was your humidity up there?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, it was very muggy and sweaty!
LikeLike
Whoa, that bug bite looks seriously nasty. I hope it will be better today (then again, this might be the start of your superhero career, and sees you gaining superpowers. I mean this is how Spiderwoman started right? 😂😂)
Glad to hear you have enjoyed Captain Marvel. I thought the movie was enjoyable as well, and had a bit of different tone than all the other Marvel films. As for he Boys, it sounds weird and great all at the same time! Since it’s on Amazon Prime I currently don’t yet have access to it, but maybe it will become available at some point or other in the future for me.
The pictures look great, and I’m glad to hear the heatwave has pretty much settled down😃
LikeLiked by 1 person
No superpowers yet, I’ll keep trying 🤣 cheers Michel.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha, good things sometimes take time 😂😂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I get bug bites just like that, when I forget to use my ‘Jungle Spray’. Could it have been a horse fly? Their bites are famously fierce.
You barbecue looks like a serious gas-bottle job, an outdoor cooker. I haven’t used ours for years, as it always rained as I wheeled it out of the shed. But it’s just a bowl that you have to fill with charcoal.
I like the new lens! 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cheers Pete, it wasn’t a horsefly, it just looked like a small black dash actually, like an exclamation mark without the dot at the bottom. We’ve had our BBQ for many years now but are still using the gas bottle we got when we bought it, 🙄 we don’t do that many I suppose.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh I’ll give The Boys a try now…I was put off by the superhero thing. I like your half dead sunflower too!I identify with it…Hope your arm gets better, I get some mad bites. My whole thigh swelled up once after a horsefly bite :p
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes do have a go at The Boys, it’s wonderfully subversive. The bite is still driving me bonkers with itching, will be glad when it’s over!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I feel your pain!I dread the buggers…and its hard to get any sympathy 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your sunflower, although spent, is simply gorgeous!
Hope your bug bite is doing better- no fun.
Loved your post and photos. Enjoy your new lens!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Will do if it ever stops raining. Cheers Pamo.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have the 16 f2.8. It’s a fabulous lens. So light compared to my 1.4 version.
That is some nasty bite. Apparently we are getting insects in uk that we aren’t used to..so our systems react like yours.
I’m going to have to look up “the boys”.
Hope the swelling goes soon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks John. The bite is getting a bit better, still itches like billy-oh. Haven’t had chance to use the 16 yet, hopefully will at the weekend.
LikeLiked by 1 person