Heatwaves, Whitby and Looking Ahead

Well, it's been a hot one to state the blooming obvious!

The kind of hot where you check the weather app every hour hoping for a thunderstorm, the dogs refuse to move from the coolest spot in the house and even making a cup of tea (which apparently is a good thing in this heat) feels like an extreme sport.

All this sunshine has got us thinking about our mum, who was pregnant with Katie during the famous summer of 1976.

For those who remember it, it wasn't just a nice summer. It was the summer. Weeks of blazing sunshine, hosepipe bans and people sleeping with the windows open in the hope of catching the slightest breeze.

Quite honestly, we don't know how she managed it. Carrying a baby through that kind of heat deserves some sort of national recognition.

We've tried our best to keep cool over the past few days.

There has been swimming, which we're counting as a proper healthy activity. There's something wonderfully refreshing about diving into cool water when the temperatures soar.

Swimming also inevitably made us think of one of our fave places; Whitby and the open-top bus tour.

If you've ever been on it, you'll know that every single time they tell you why the lido is bright blue. We must have heard that fact so many times by now that we're fairly certain we could step in and do that part of the commentary ourselves.... but we won't spoil it for you.

But what we really miss is the tour guide we had years ago.

She was absolutely brilliant!

She seemed to regard the official script as merely a rough guide and instead treated us to snippets from her own life. Somewhere between the Abbey and the harbour, we found out where she'd gone to school, where she'd worked and, most memorably of all, where she'd had her first snog.

By the end of the tour, we knew more about her teenage years than we did about some members of our own family. I miss her!!!

She turned an ordinary bus tour into one of those wonderfully quirky memories that sticks with you years later. If by some chance you're reading this, mystery Whitby tour guide, we miss you and hope you're still taking people delightfully off script.

Of course, swimming wasn't our only way of coping with the heat.

There may also have been one or two cheeky glasses of vino in the garden. Less healthy than swimming? Sorry Slimming World Leader....for we have sinned!

One of the lovely things about hot weather is that it slows life down a little. People sit outside longer, neighbours chat over the fence and suddenly every meal tastes better eaten in the garden.

But while we've been enjoying the sunshine, our minds are also turning to the week ahead.

Behind the scenes, we'll be spending plenty of time working on our new Matinees of Murders and Mysteries events at the Bonnington Theatre.

There are ideas to develop, plans to finalise and some very exciting things beginning to take shape. We can't wait to tell you more because we genuinely think these afternoons are going to be something special, fascinating stories, intriguing guests and the chance to spend time with fellow lovers of mystery and true crime.

For now though, we're going to enjoy the last of the sunshine, keep a fan within arm's reach and perhaps have one final ice cream.

How have you been keeping cool during the heatwave? We'd love to know.