More barbecue and paddling pool

Janice and Emma came over yesterday afternoon / evening and Emma and I changed into swimsuits and sat in the paddling pool getting cooler. Then Emma popped corn on the barbecue and cooked dinner for us. We ate a lot of cheese. On Saturday, Rob and I bought cold pies and cold cut meat at Sweeneys, and cheese and cider at the County Stores delicatessen. On Saturday and Sunday, we ate them. Yum. Wensleydale, Gloucester, Red Leicester, Gubbeen, and Emmental.

The cider was pretty good, too, and the bottle it came in is nice. Sitting around in the dusk in a damp swimsuit was nice too; not very English-feeling. This weather is odd.

Pools, bread, books, and errands

Our house has recently caught fleas, and the cats are spending all their time outdoors (presumably because of the heat), so the fleas are breeeeding for lack of food. Mind you, even if the cats were indoors, the fleas wouldn't last long. I wonder if I can put something in my food to make me inedible?

So I bundled up the duvet (which is one of the things which has fleas) and brought it to our local laundrette, whose doors I had never before darkened. They do ironing; it's one pound for a shirt or a pair of trousers or jeans. I am tempted to bring all my linens and silks to them for ironing, wear them all, and bring them back again. I really don't like wearing good clothes badly, and I really hate ironing, especially in this heat. I wonder if they charge extra for linen ironing?

Other errands... well, I bought a foot file so that my heels will stop chafing me so badly; too much barefooting and sandalling has left me with a callouses that don't really fit in any other shoes I own, and that hurt when I dance. Most peculiar. I also bought a bicycle cover, as our old one disintegrated during a storm or two last winter and we're due a storm sometime soon (at least, I hope we are).

I spent a good chunk of the day sitting (as I am now) in the garden with my laptop on my knee and my feet in the paddling pool. We'll have to skim out the debris soon, but that's ok; we have to water the garden soon, so I can skim with a bucket.

Lately I've been doing a bad job of getting my point - or, more accurately, my position - across on Usenet. In two entirely different threads, in two entirely different newsgroups, I have been reduced to (as I see it) rephrasing multiple times in order to get my personal stand on a thing across. What makes it worse is that it's not necesarily a stand I think is a good one, merely one which I have and can (or could, in the case of one I no longer hold) justify. However, they are both at least mildly emotional topics and I have heat-indeuced (and probably assignment-less-ness-induced) braindeath.

For my next trick I shall learn to revise for an exam; another first. I've more or less mastered studying now, rather than taking in information by osmosis, and I've begun to learn having to work for a grade, but I'm quite worried about the revising thing. If I don't fail, I shall do the next course; I probably learn more by trying to study stuff which leaves me lukewarm than stuff which really wakes me up; I will do exciting things when I've mastered the whole Study concept. I'm pretty sure that the difficult, exciting things will need more in the way of academic skill than I have now.

The breadmaker is making bread. I used old dried yeast, but it may be ok. We shall see. It certainly looked pretty good halfway through its second rising. Shame the recipe book only has two wholemeal recipes; perhaps I can adapt some of the others to wholemeal bread. I can't eat white yeast bread, for whatever reason. Anyway, it will be done in about an hour.