Autumn seems to have been late in coming this year; the weather has been mild, so I've barely needed a jacket, and the trees have been slow to turn. I even saw a peacock butterfly flapping around our garden this afternoon.

Still, the last few days have been cooler and when I look out of my window now there is definitely as much yellow on the trees as green. And when I went for a lunchtime walk a few days ago Parsons' Pleasure was looking very autumnal.

A week ago I was swimming in the river with a dry bag containing all my clothes and a microfibre towel robe. I put a cotton cardigan on after getting dressed and had to take it off about 30 seconds later because I was too warm.

Today we swam in the lake in the rain, with winter changing bags on the bank and our fleece-lined dry robes. I had a wool cardigan under mine and was still chilly and wishing I had some gloves on the drive home.

Autumn seems to have arrived very suddenly this year.

It's a bit cooler today, which is good because I had a day's leave which meant that I was at home, rather than in the office, and spent the afternoon sewing, which meant being in the same room as a hot iron.

I also realised while crawling back up the A34 after swimming that if I switch the direction of the air conditioning in my car from "windscreen and footwells" to "footwells only", it blows cool air straight out of the dashboard vents at me and is generally much, much more effective at keeping me cool. I am not sure this is entirely obvious from the icons on the dial, but there you go.

Tomorrow, it is supposed to rain, and maybe even be cool enough not to wear shorts. Not that I don't like my shorts (and am surprised by the slightly ironic discovery that wearing shorts and exposing my hairy legs, something that I had a miserable time being bullied about in my teens, now results in massive gender/appearance euphoria. Fuck the people who told me that the only way to exist was to not be me for so long), but it would be nice to have a change.

Next week I'm planning to be in the office for all four of the days I'm working, which is exciting because it means my craft room can stay as a craft room all week, and I only have to remember one workday routine rather than having two and having to remember which one I'm supposed to be following. I've also taken my good mouse and headphones to the office and brought the less-good ones I was using there home. This may, of course, be entirely premature and we'll be pitched back into lockdown and working from home again soon, but I'm going to make the most of being able to have work and home in separate places while I can.

I suspect that my ground-floor office in a building with thick concrete walls is a better place to spend a day when temperatures were over 30C (31C according to my car on the way home just before 7) than my house, which gets very hot, especially upstairs.

I also decided that, given that insofar as we have a dress code, (a) I set it and (b) it's "No onesies" in normal circumstances and "clothes" in COVID times, knee-length cotton twill shorts and a button-down shirt definitely counted as appropriate officewear, hairy legs and all. I have to say, I rather enjoy just how masc a look that is, particularly finished off with rainbow Teva sandals and a Panama hat (with a rainbow ribbon). Or a recently rebuzzed buzzcut-with-quiff, when indoors.

I think I might go for a swim after dinner.

The temperature today has been in the high 20s, and it's forecast to stay hot until the end of the week, with overnight lows in the high teens (not that the nights are very long at the moment anyway). This is, on the whole, too hot for me. It's not too bad at the weekends (I spent most of today making a pair of cropped linen trousers, then went to read on the sofa as the living room is north-facing and cool and by mid-afternoon my room was quite hot) but I am not looking forward to working either in my room here, which will be hot again by mid-afternoon, or in my office which is probably cooler but where I would then have to get home in the heat.

At least this evening I'll be going swimming. I wish I was rich enough to have a private lake.