Heatwave

Having grown up in a sub-tropical part of the world, where the temperature often reaches well into the thirties (that's Degrees Celsius) and hardly ever drops below 10 degrees, I found adapting to the British weather a bit of a challenge when I first arrived here. I have however acclimatised over the past eleven years and now (quite embarrassingly) I find myself struggling to cope on days when the quicksilver hardly even begins to climb into the twenties!

This week, us here in Old Blighty have been issued with a severe weather warning, a Heat Wave is coming!! I still have a little chuckle to myself when they warn us to prepare for temperatures in the high twenties, (what, that's not a heat wave!), but then as the days grow hotter, my chuckle quickly grows to more of a groan. I don't however like to complain when the weather is nice like this, all too soon it will be cold and miserable again, so instead I use this opportunity to come up with lots of new salads and quick cook suppers for us to enjoy while the heat plays havoc with our appetites.

Little T loves fruit, so we have been eating lots of salads that are just simply fresh fruit cut into bite sized pieces, served with bread sticks and some cold cut meats for lunch. I always make sure that the fruit are very cold and served straight from the fridge, it's a lovely and refreshing meal after a hot and sunny morning of playing in the garden.

For dinner, stir fry has become my new best friend. What could be easier than throwing a selection of chopped veggies into a hot wok, adding some noodles, a few herbs and spices and a splash of whatever sauce will bring the best out of the dish, and within minutes you've got yourself a light and lovely supper for a hot summers evening. My favourite part is seeing Little T slurp down the long noodles and him giggling when they wriggle into his mouth :)

Speaking of herbs, the warm and humid weather has been very good for all of my potted herbs. I am still amazed that I have not just been able to keep all of these plants alive, but that they are growing so well. Soon I will have enough basil to make a pot of pesto for another hot weather favourite dinner of ours, "green spaghetti".

I don't have a whole lot of other plants in the garden as I am not allowed to plant anything in the ground (it's a rental property) and as I have admitted before, I am not very good at gardening. Lucky for me then that this beautiful flower sneaked through from our neighbours in a gap in our fence :)

According to all trusted sources, and from the feel of it this early in the day, today is set to be another scorcher, so for now Little T and I are off to make some fruity ice-lollies for our tea time snack :)