Indian summer!

The Indian summer is over! After almost 2 weeks of fantastic weather, we are back to normal London weather: fresh and cloudy. But it was the hottest week in the last century and on 1 or 2 days it was here hotter than the Bahamas. What a shame that I had to work, even work hard. But one particular afternoon, it was too warm and nice to stay in the office and my colleagues and I headed off to Hyde Park enjoying the sunshine and the cooling water of the Diana memorial fountain. And did not fail to get disgusted by this year's Serpentine Pavilion, of which I still do not understand the whole point. But I will not waste time writing on that.

The whole "Indian summer" kicked off when my mother and sister visited us for a week. It never crossed our minds that the sun and heat would persist for a couple of weeks, so we thought it was mere luck! We made the most of the good weather by visiting Richmond (and managed to "meet" a couple of deer, too) and then another trip to Regent's Park and a long day out to Greenwich and the obligatory visit to one of London's architectural landmarks during the annual London Open House; this year we visited the Broadgate Tower in Liverpool Street. It was a fun week, though I must say that our poor studio flat was filled to its capacity, but we survived! It is always nice to have visitors and to be able to entertain.

On the following weekend, we headed off to Wembley Stadium for a tour of the sport Mecca with a Maltese friend. Nothing compares with a full stadium and in action but it was nonetheless a great experience. A decent pub lunch concluded the outing.

On what was probably the warmest day of them all, my wife and I headed off to central London for one massive riverside walk, this time on the north bank, kicking off at the Monument and up its 311 steps for an amazing 360 degree vista of the City and beyond and then continuing up to St. Paul's, across to Tate Modern, a sneak into the Rose Theatre (a first for us), a tasty focaccia for lunch at Borough Market, a site visit at the towering Shard, then back to St. Paul's (which we hoped to enter and go up its dome but we found out that it was about to close 40 minutes later and thus had to postpone) and then a visit to the Barbican. Even writing all these made me tired!

The first day of the week was nice and sunny, too, but that is all; from today, we are getting temperatures as low as 10 degrees at night and sunshine is at a premium. Possibly a good sign, since I can focus on my work, especially now that I have started my 3rd and (in theory) final year of my Ph.D. More on that, later!