It was a good summer

At the start of the season, the TWO forecast was

The TWO summer forecast covering June, July and August has been issued and the headline is for a mixed summer with the best weather probably during the first half, with a deterioration later on. August is expected to bring the worst weather, but on the whole the summer isn't likely to be as bad as last year's.

which was upset by the heatwave in July -- even the August Bank Holiday weekend was mostly fine.

There was rain on the Thursday before, when we took Karen's mum out to lunch at the Willow Tree in Bourn, but it was fine when we returned there on Sunday afternoon for their barbecue garden party. While there, some of the players from the production of the Dream at Burwash Manor turned up in costume after the matinee, handing out flyers.

So we went to the Tuesday evening performance on a beautiful clear evening that only just started to feel cool after the stars were well out; and despite a forecast of cloud, Wednesday when we went to Orford for lunch at the Crown and Castle was almost cloudless, and lovely weather for sitting out on the terrace for lunch.

Thursday did the same for my long bike ride, then again of Friday for an afternoon at Linton Zoo, as did Saturday. Only today did it stay rather hazy.

As a result of the weather, with Karen being rather washed out by the heat, I did a lot more about house and garden, than I expected, getting around to bits of tidying that had needed doing since we got the adaptations done in '06 (the last time we had a semi-decent summer) and more miles on my bike at 100 miles a week -- including a lot of simple shopping runs.

OTOH, there are things I didn't do as a result -- code much, cook very much (when salads were often the order of the day), upgrade my phone or my home network, do anything shocking like get a tattoo.

But what I did accomplish was to shed a lot of stress, and decide that yes, I will be able to handle retirement if I can ever afford it. The lowered stress levels may last me until all of Tuesday, but it's still a decade until I can get my bus pass.