In early June I got heat stroke while swimming in Greece. I learnt that I can no longer cope with really hot temperatures. So my emergency preparedness plan is not to be so daft again.

Today there was a gorgeous cool wind blowing directly up our street. I decided to banish a rather ghastly adobe orange wall in our back lane and turn it white.

The back lane runs parallel to the street, but inexplicably there was no wind. Despite the wind maps arrows.

My emergency preparedness plan, or my newfound common sense made me stop the job not even half done. The back lane was stupidly hot.

A few glasses of water and a cool shower were all I needed to avert a dizzy disaster. But then came the oversharing. Parcels arrived for our neighbours. I felt the need to explain my cold, showered towel-wrapped appearance at 5 pm to the delivery man. Does he care? Of course not he just wants parcels to be received and to no longer to be his responsibility. The irony is that while painting the wall white I missed my own parcel delivery.

Memo to self . No painting of white walls on hot afternoons when everyone in the street including me  is expecting parcels.

No need to explain why I needed a shower.

No over sharing of information.

P.s. I only opened the door because a neighbour had promised me a delivery of some  Saskatchewan Berry Jam later this afternoon. Offers like this are rare in Devon. I think he forgot.

If my blog creates one additional smile in the world then I would consider that a ponder well used as far as the world is concerned .

For 55 years I was a cat or nothing  sort of person. Many of those years with house/flat only cats. And all cat-owning years with a dirt box in my home. Then I got dogs+cats and now I am in an exclusive relationship with dogs. Yardening changed everything. We work really hard to have a child safe , beautiful space to relax, in our urban, coastal yard.

What we have never wanted is a cat latrine. We have neighbours in the extended locality who have any number of pet cats that are free to roam, shit and piss in other peoples outside space. Honestly I am so over cats! Apart from this one who was posing so beautifully for a visual pun in Brixton Market.

Positivity and learning are a fabulous way to express gratitude. Even when something seems all bad there must be a tiny nugget that can be a point for learning and some sense of positivity can be found. A deliberately delayed blog as I knew this morning would feature dog walking, doing the laundry and white painting the grubby white outdoor cooking area.

My reward for doing the laundry and the painting was a delayed sit down to write the blog. The dog walk was, as always mostly positive. Laundry is kind of meh. Although the top picture of white washing, white walls and white Agapanthus was my nugget of positivity.

I am very much over, painting white walls white. My own fault for extending the original project but this little rest is the nugget I can be positively grateful for.

I’ve been nattering on about Syneshesia with a new friend. We met, but in the way of the current world, we have not actually met, in the most negative of spaces. The death of someone we had in common and a Zoom Funeral. In nattering on-line we have discovered that we are both synesthesic and have followed very similar career paths. Finding someone to natter about synesthesia is definitely something to be grateful for even if it came  from a sad space. Quite how to formulate a natter  about synesthesia as an interesting blog subject is something to ponder while I return to white painting. Who knows if I will get there. Pondering positively is my daily gratitude for  being here.

Although here is currently a white corner.