Quite good thunderstorm 3.45-4.30 - we only caught the fringe of it but there was the heaviest hail I've ever seen - some pellets 1" x ½" with opaque core and clear outer coating. Leaves pulled off trees by same.

Incidentally quite a good storm last night too, around 11.30pm.

Quite chilly in the morning, turning hot later.

Hot but with pleasant cool breeze. Detoured my walk home through the edge of the country park. Thinking about it, with the dry weather I could walk across the whole park, and save 15 minutes.

Eventually turned out quite a nice day, though not so hot as in the week.

Grey, damp, much cooler.

Very hot till 2pm when we had a fantastic thunderstorm. It was preceded in classic fashion by cold gusts and passed right over the campus. Went upstairs to watch from a corridor window - many forks, branches and sheets of lightning. Then the rain started and the thunder got positively apocalyptic - great ripping cracks and explosions. By 3pm the sun was out and it was cooler.

Definitely the best storm since that one I waited all one long summer day for back in Mugsborough. (Ha, I see that was also Friday, June 24th).

There've been many fruitless waits in my career as a thunder fan, but one sign never disappoints: the pre-storm cold gusts. If you get those, you're in for a show.

Btw, realised why June 24th is called Midsummer Eve: June 25th is one of the quarter days.

Even hotter today - sun very powerful at only 7.40am. This time of year, in the early morning you can pretend it's 3pm on a bright winter afternoon (the low sun).

Very hot today - hot enough again to have to stand in the shade at the bus stop on the way home.

Answer from the Essex Libraries 'answers' service, identifying the hot office/iceberg poem I've been trying to remember these last few hot days. It's The Ice-Cart by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson.

Hot again but easier to tolerate - drier perhaps?

Unpleasantly warm and muggy.

Very hot and clear. Quite tolerable inside though, with a warm, fragrant through breeze. Admittedly, I can hear more of the neighbours' garden conversations than I'd like, but at least here I can have the windows open before 9pm. At the old flat it was always way too noisy and fume-ridden for that.

Beautiful day - often cloudless, and so hot even by 8am that I did my shopping in a black t-shirt.

Beautiful day - often cloudless, and so hot even by 8am that I did my shopping in a black t-shirt.

Dark, damp grey day.

Really quite chilly today.

Rather colder today.

Hot sunlight with cool breeze today, very pleasant.

Impressive rainless cold-front squall about 6pm.