Too hot for ice cream!

 Well, no ice cream yesterday, nor the frozen fish I wanted - all of the supermarket's freezers were roped off with notices pinned on them saying the food was dangerous to eat as the freezers were out of order.  A lot of their chiller cabinets holding the fresh food were empty too - same reason, chillers broken down.  A staff member said the chiller and freezer cabinets just couldn't cope with the heat.  Apparently, it was the same with all their freezers in the stock room out the back, they were going to have to discard ALL of their frozen food....that's an awful lot of food to throw away!  Terrible isn't it, but of course they have to be safe, if someone got ill as a result of eating food from a freezer that had broken down, the store would be in big trouble.  At least two other food stores in town had the same problems, according to local social media.  Makes you wonder how other countries that generally have hotter temperatures than ours cope - I guess they're more geared up for it, as the heat is normal for them.  But it looks like these extremes of temperatures/weather conditions are becoming normal for this country too, so it's time to get their acts together I think.

The car journey to and from husband's podiatry appointment in Taunton yesterday afternoon was deeply unpleasant, traffic jams and boiling hot temperatures, 32 deg according to the car thermometer.  And then when we got there, it was a pay and display car park with machines that didn't accept cards, it was a pay by phone thing which I'd never used before, I figured it out though.  It did accept coins (correct money only, no change given) but husband had no cash at all and I only had 40p(!!) as I almost never use cash nowadays.  If husband had been on his own he'd have been completely flummoxed.  I guess that's a lesson to always ensure we have some coins in the car.  Honestly, this cashless society is a downright nuisance at times.  The podiatrist said that husband wears the wrong shoes, almost all his shoes are slip ons which the podiatrist said don't stop his feet from sliding forwards inside them when he's walking, causing his toes to bunch up at the front.  He said he should ideally wear lace ups, which husband finds difficult to do up because bending over causes him to become breathless and dizzy.  The chap did say that velcro fastening ones would be a reasonable alternative.  Incidentally, husband's cardiac nurse told him ages ago that instead of bending over to do up his shoes, he should bring his feet up towards him, i.e. put his foot up on a stool, so he doesn't have to bend over so far.  Does he do it though?  No of course he doesn't, despite me reminding him umpteen times. 🙄

It's noticeably cooler this morning and was a much more comfortable night, thank goodness, it's still warm but not blisteringly hot and humid, breezy too which is nice.  There's a food and drink festival on at the seafront today, basically local food and drink producers selling very nice but also very expensive wares - we'll go and look anyway.  I'd better get some cash out of a machine on the way there, just in case!

We had a phone call from husband's sister yesterday, the one with lung cancer (he has 4 sisters and 3 brothers still living).  She and her daughter are coming down for 3 nights next month, daughter will be driving, they're staying in the Premier Inn less than 2 miles away so will be spending most of every day with us.  Being realistic, it's likely to be the last time husband and his sister see each other - as her illness progresses she won't be coming down all this way (around 175 miles), nor is husband able to drive that distance either.  So we'll have to make the most of this visit.  And then his daughter and son in law are coming down for a long weekend in August, it's always nice to see them.