Summer @ Home, Work & Elsewhere

June and July were proper summer months - some days were a little too hot, some a little too cold, there was not quite enough rain to make fields, gardens and woodland happy, but some days were just perfect with wall-to-wall sunshine, long, warm evenings, beautiful sunsets and nights cool enough to allow fresh air into the flat and make sleeping possible.

You already know some of the things I've been up to this summer so far; there is more, enough material for several posts. This one is just a more or less random collection of what summer was and is like for me at home, at work and elsewhere.

About two or three years after its original flowers, finally my yellow orchid (a gift from my parents when I swapped my bedroom and living room and had them redecorated) is in bloom again:

One particularly hot day at the office (without AC!), chilled coffee was sold at the canteen. I gladly bought one and took it to my desk, where it helped make the hot, hot, hot afternoon a little more bearable.

Both cushion covers were suprise finds in Ripon, the yellow one a few years ago and the one with the foxes this year in March, at the Spring Food Home & Garden Show  at the cathedral.

The bedsheets with their yellow and blue stripes are just perfect for my bedroom, and give it a fresh summery look.

A kind neighbour brought me these cherries - they were delicious! - and the chopping board and key fob, both made by him, to say thank you for a small favour I had done him some weeks ago:

A weekend spent with O.K. at my place; a little chillier than the days before, we were in town for a few things when I met this llama:

Some days were rather hot but cooling down enough by sunset to make a leisurely run feasible. I took up my oldest route again, the one I started training on when I first participated in my home town's city run ten years ago. It leads along a small wooded area between my town and the next, and the bridge spanning the motorway is my turning point. 
The evening light was beautiful, and although I am not a car person, there are moments when even the motorway has particular beauty, as seen in the second picture, taken just before 9:00 pm on the 28th of June:

The second heatwave of this summer broke last Saturday with thunderstorms and rain. It is grey and rather chilly today, but a sunny week is forecast with temperatures no hotter than a very nice 27C (as oppósed to the almost 40 we had last week).