will it be cooler?

So the big question for the weekend is will it be a bit cooler?

It's been very hot this last week, but not only that, it's been very humid and sticky too - especially at night.

I'm not sure if it's quite capped Nice/Monaco yet, but then for one thing this week I've obviously been at work, rather than sat out in the sun. While it's still hot, being sat in the sun is hotter still.

Also, I've the advantage at home of having the air conditioner. So wile it's horribly hot when I get back from work, within an hour or so my air con has cooled it down to something resembling warm. Then by the evening it can be veritably frosty in my bedroom.

I actually did a bit of an experiment the last two nights. Normally I try to keep my bedroom door closed when I use the aircon, in an attempt to make and keep that room as cold as possible. The problem with this seems to be that as soon as the aircon goes off it heats up very quickly.

What I tried was opening the door and also using fans to try to blow the hot kitchen air into the bedroom. My theory was that by cooling the whole place it would mean the bedroom would stay cooler for longer at night - there'd be no rush of hot air in from the kitchen.

I think it worked, though less successfully last night. I dunno, it can be difficult to really tell because you can't really account for the effects of natural variations.

Anyway, I'm hoping for a bit of a respite this weekend at least. A couple of cooler days would go down well. Especially as this weekend is a cleaning weekend, so finger's crossed.

But either way, I'm going to try to get my hair cut. Longer hair is not so good in warm weather.

I've been having a few weird experiences with the old bread maker. I've been trying to diversify away from the white bread and on Wednesday tried a brown loaf. It didn't quite go to plan, shall we say?

The problem was that it didn't really rise as much as I was expecting. The rising agent in bread is yeast, which gives off carbon dioxide as it ferments. Trouble with yeast is it's alive, but the form you buy it in is a kind of inert form.

But it does mean that it can 'die' or also be activated too early by exposure to water. I've been trying to run the bread machine so that it produces a loaf when I get back from work, but that means I obviously couldn't check the progress of this first brown loaf.

I've therefore no idea if I cocked up or if the yeast was knackered or what. But basically the bread came out almost slab like. It wasn't quite like unleavened bread, but it certainly wasn't fluffy and light like all the white loaves I've had so far.

But there is another factor of course - I've no idea how sitting in this natural heat waiting on the timer is affecting the process. What I did do was try a normal white loaf last night, but not using the timer.

It went okay - the loaf is light and fluffy, so I don't think the yeast is too blame. Maybe it was just the heat evaporating the water?