I was watching Brian Cox's Planets on iPlayer today. Thought I was living on a cold version of Venus.

 

---

I put my coffee grounds around the edges of my borders. I also sprinkle ashes from the wood burner, although that’s best when the weather’s dry as it’s abrasive as well as containing salts.  Jars of beer sunk into the ground attracts them and drowns them.  

---

That’s the best gloat on this thread!  

---

More excellent suggestions - thanks Caz. Not sure about the beer idea - we never have any spare...

---

Yes, the snails are having a party around here. We never seem to get slugs, just snails. But they’re on the rampage.

This week is so bleak and end of worldy it’s almost fun.

---

How's your garlic?

 

Slug pellets.

And screw the environment. For these evil, slimey slithering gonads, temporary disregard for the environment is acceptable.

---

Another plus is this rain should ensure a decent billberry crop on the Hampshire/ Surrey mountains 

Apparently copper wire has the same effect.

---

Manchester Summer Indices 

1954 143
1907 147
2019 147 (up to 12th June)
1956 155
1912 156
1924 158
2012 164
2008 168
1987 169
1946 170
1909 171
1931 173
1978 173
1980 173
1920 174
1923 174
2007 174
1927 175
1948 176
1938 177
1922 178
2011 179
1985 180 

---

Your summer index figure does not surprise me in the least Kev. We are now enduring our eighth consecutive rainy day here and everything is completely waterlogged. Those that wished for rain have your wish, but as usual in this country, it's all come at once and is completely destroying what is meant to be summer. A completely rancid horrendous start to summer and June is already a write off as far as I'm concerned. Even looking at the models, although the Ensembles on the GFS appear better, this isn't really backed up by the charts and it remains cool and changeable at best.
The Cricket World Cup is being completely decimated and everyone is getting the winter blues in my neck of the woods.

---

And since it is dry and bright at the moment, I've just opened a window to let the fresh air in as it was getting stuffy again indoors.

---

What is notable about this spell isn't the rain, it's been wet though unremarkable here and most of that has fallen during two overnight periods. Nor is it even the miserable 10.0C max recorded on Tuesday. Rather it is the lack of sun. There has been no sun here since early on Monday morning. Assuming there is none this evening that's almost 4 consecutive entirely sunless days. In June. That must be close to being unprecedented.

---

Because 8 of the 92 official days of summer have had rain you think summer has been destroyed, and you've written June off because 8/30 days have had rain 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Here have a lollipop 🍭🍼

And here comes the sun! Sun has made an appearance and there is some blue sky.

---

A staggeringly awful and breathtakingly grim week of utterly foul and suicide-inducing garbage. I have only managed to get out once at lunchtime and the evenings are just a write-off. It's as vile a week as you would ever get at any time of the year. The June permacast hell truly has excelled itself this year 

Today was the absolute limit. Stupidly cold, stupidly wet and stupidly windy. Unreal how cold it was in the office today - just like winter and everyone is sick to the back teeth of it. Once again life in this hellhole is reduced to an endurance test.

Max of just 8.8C and below 8C until after 2pm  It just doesn't get any colder than this at his time of year so yet again we see record low day temperatures achieved with ease in summer whereas it's become impossible to get anywhere near the record high, even last year. This is why this abhorrent decade will be the first since the 1960s not to reach 28C, and with an even lower absolute maximum as well 

I can see this year being so bad it struggles to even reach 23C with no sort of settled spell whatsoever. Who knows the max of 22C at Easter weekend may not be bettered resulting in 1963's woeful record low max of 22.2C getting beaten. Hasn't even topped 18C this month. It seems that you just can't set the bar too low these days

 

---

Hang on in there Richard.

Here's something to cheer you up :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj4wcuo9Mgo

 

 

---

  Yes, the lack of sun is notable. It’s been the same here. 

The Sky has been a solid mucky shade of dark grey since Monday afternoon but today it’s been a mottled mass of different shades of grey, which made a nice change.  Then a blue crack appeared and the sun almost made an appearance before it started to rain again. 

---

Yes indeed. Not long after I posted that the clouds began to break and it's a reasonably sunny evening now. Perhaps I should try that one in winter  'Assuming that there are no more snow showers tonight.....'

 

 

---

Manchester Summer Indices

2019 143 (up to 13th June)
1954 143
1907 147
1956 155
1912 156
1924 158
2012 164
2008 168
1987 169
1946 170
1909 171
1931 173
1978 173
1980 173
1920 174
1923 174
2007 174
1927 175
1948 176
1938 177
1922 178
2011 179
1985 180

---

Travelling to my concert rehearsal in Farrington Gurney yesterday evening was in sunshine. Had the sun visor down all the way.

---

 

Yay! Made it to the top of the rubbish tree!

 

 

---

But just imagine the horror of living through 1954, when the entire summer was as bad as the first 13 days of June!

---

 

It was probably a little bit worse than living through 2012 & 2007   

---

Would rather have lived through summer 1954 than the much worse summers of 2007 and 2012.

While summer 2019 is not has bad as any of them, so far, the year as a whole is much worse. All those years had decent weather in spring whereas 2019 is just staggeringly awful without even the snow that other poor spring/summer years like 1985 and 1993 had.

Not to mention the utterly dire evening/weekend weather. Lucky if there's even been five days all year when I've been able to sit out in the garden after work. Not in all the years I have been working has it been this bad - probably have to go back to 1993 for something as unrelentingly awful and I was still at school then.

Almost given up trying to plan a day out on a Saturday as it is just the same disgusting, horrifically depressing grey crap week in week out. If anything it's just getting worse. More grey garbage today only with the added misery of thick murk and appalling visibility as yet again the wind comes from the repulsive SE quadrant. Looking like potentially the third sunless day out of four 

On course to outdo even 2011 and 2014 for sheer horror weekend weather. Just one mostly sunny Saturday since the start of April and even that was a cooler than average day. Basically no nice warm and sunny weather at all. Even Easter Saturday which remains the warmest day of the year was only sunny in the afternoon.

Looking at the whole of the April to September period the best year for Saturday weather was last year when there were 12 mostly sunny Saturdays and the worst were 2011 and 2014 (no surprises there) when there were only six so we still have a long way to go to even catch up with those horrors. No year had fewer than three by this point.

No wonder all everyone is talking about is how crap the weather has been this year and as usually the stats back it up. Another desperately SAD and depressing horror show. Just had an email offering me deals on summer essentials such as sandals and t-shirts. What a joke as the only summer essentials here these days are raincoats, SAD lamps and Vitamin D pills

---