Ten minutes past three in the afternoon on a day that has been pretty unproductive in terms of outdoor work. The temperature just at the moment here in Nouvelle Aquitaine is 37 or 38 degrees C, which is very hot, too hot for me. My first beer seemed in order. There is a breeze blowing which perhaps makes it slightly easier to bear when I actually have to go out. I’m watching the fishpond evaporate. The fish have all gone deep.

This morning I didn’t begin shovelling compost until the sun was over the horizon. I’d stopped to get dressed in yesterday’s filthy working clothes and eat some muesli with berries. I managed two or three wheelbarrow loads before giving up as my sweat began to run. I was listening to “Technofeudalism” by the Greek marxist as I worked. A better book than I expected. I had to replay half a chapter when I eventually got indoors. I might have to do that again…

I also dragged the 50 metre hose around to (illegally) water the plants in the back garden. Just in time for the camellia. Figgy the young fig was also grateful. The pool is very clean and inviting. I wish I could swim.

I have spent most of the day indoors, watching Flog It on BBC, managing my eye drops and painkillers and grumbling about almost everything else to myself.

My wife phoned me from Margate this morning and the phone call made me feel I was the centre of her world for a while in amongst her grandchildren and that’s lovely and then later she texted me to help her to buy the right size bolt for the toilet seat repair I’m going to undertake when she returns. A cheerful and understanding phone call plus attention to my ironmongery needs. What else can a husband ask for?

So really not too bad a day apart from the heat and my eyes which sting and sting and sting and the washes and eyedrops which are going in very, very regularly, six or seven times a day. I was pretty miserable this morning. My ears, my eyes, my chest are all diseased in one way or another. I had a headache that I managed with paracetamol.

I looked at my right eye in the mirror about half an hour ago and I think I might be able to see the beginnings of some improvement which is hopeful because the instructions that came with it say if there is no improvement after 10 days see your doctor. So I suppose I shouldn’t expect it to work too quickly. Aquatic battles need to be fought on the salt seas of my tears.

Now, at 3.45pm another cold beer is calling from behind the fridge door. All I have to do is dodge between patches of intense solar radiation and find the fridge.