What? In this heat?

Everyone keeps telling me that the current weather is very cool for July and that it is normally much hotter (and will be so in August).  For me it is warm enough right now and I didn't feel the need to join in with this open air Zumba class which was running in the middle of Reston town centre this morning.

Apparently this is a free class, each Saturday and anyone can join in ..

On Sunday morning there is a 'bring your own mat and join in' yoga class.  Perhaps that would be more like it..

Friday at the Bargain Loft

I went to the Bargain Loft today, firstly to price some of the many pictures that have been donated since I was last there and then to do my regular Friday afternoon cashier duty.

The whole place is very full at present 

I was quite taken with these wooden 'lighthouse' ornaments, each of which has a little black cat somewhere in its design.

These vintage sundae glasses featured Elsie the Cow.  As ever there was an extraordinary mix of items for sale.

And finally..just one more variety of toadstool, growing in the mulch around a tree by the road.

Flowers, fungi and a fairy

This very fragrant shrub has started to flower in the garden.  

It is quite a large bush, each spike of flower is about three inches long and smells very sweet.

Having found so many toadstools and mushrooms in the garden yesterday we watched out for them this evening when we walked around the block and also checked for new ones in the garden.  A few had appeared or changed.

Some of these are very large - 6 inches or more across.

These very colourful toadstools are tiny and look as if they belong in a fairy story..

I have photographed this little 'tree house',  in a front garden just a few doors up the road up from us, before.  The fairy though is new.  A pity that none of the little orange spotty toadstools were growing here as they would have fitted in rather well!

Mushrooms and Toadstools

The last few days have been very hot and humid and we had noticed that a number of mushrooms of various types have appeared on lawns and under trees around our road.

This evening I looked in our garden and the woods behind and found quite a variety of different fungi.

Many of them are in quite poor condition either due to the heat or because they have been nibbled.

These white ones were quite fresh..

Whereas these were definitely not.

Earrings

An at-home day today - so once the ironing and other chores were done I spent some time 'playing' with some new beads and findings to create some new summer earring designs for sale at the Bargain Loft.

Flowering Trees

There are many brightly coloured flowering trees around Reston - in shades of pink, pale purple and white.  At first glance they look rather like lilac but close up the flower is quite different.

We have one of these trees in the garden, but no flowers as yet - there are signs of flowers to come on the top - they will be white.  They are referred to locally as 'strawberry trees'.  They have a  brown trunk/stem which peels, almost like a eucalyptus.

Ours does not look very interesting as yet..

The last time I photographed it was in the winter after our first 'ice storm' when the seed heads were completely encased in ice.

'

Back to the US

Our visit has come to an end and so this morning we boarded a Virgin Atlantic plane 'Miss England' and headed back to Washington Dulles airport.

David Milliband was also on the flight - we saw him in the lounge and then read in the Sunday paper that he is meeting with President Obama in Washington tomorrow.

This interactive map enables you to follow the route - when this was taken we had almost arrived back.

The weather was cloudy below as we arrived at Dulles and only a little warmer than the UK.