Hot hot hot

I’m now getting what I avoided first time by going to Orkney. Heatwave. Who’s old enough to remember Martha Reeves and the Vandellas?
I went to my allotment to weed, tidy and water. My pet cinnabar moth caterpillars are doing well and growing fast:) Above are shasta daisies which form a kind of hedge around an adjacent plot. 
It was lovely to hear swifts above, though they were so high up they were hard to see. I worked rather longer than I meant to and was really hot when I left. A cool shower, then off next door to my neighbours 30th birthday barbecue. She is Mexican ( though fortunately has just got UK citizenship) so her family are not able to be present. It was mainly her partner’s family. What was really striking to me  - both his parents are there with their new partners and all 4 of them get on so well and are clearly friends.  A lovely afternoon spent chatting about growing gooseberries, football, making marmalade and other delightful topics. Various aunties, mums and step mums had all made cakes and desserts, and I ate more of those things than in the whole of the year so far:-) Luckily I only had a couple of metres to waddle home. 
The cakes didn’t have candles. There was one especially creamy one with writing on it in blueberries. K the birthday girl bent down to look at it, and I had such a shock when her sister in law put her hand on the back of K’s head and pushed her face right in the cake! She emerged completely covered in cream from chin to eyebrows.  I really wish I had a photo. I realised the others weren’t quite as shocked as I was, and it emerged that it’s a Mexican birthday tradition. K said it had happened to her every birthday since she was tiny. So good that her English family are carrying it on…