The water went off suddenly last night in the whole neighborhood where Kirstie lives, and true to typical local government inefficiency, the water is still off this morning. And yesterday was the hottest day of the year, with today feeling as if it's even hotter. I'd already decided that today I'd actually have a rest day and just stay home and write, and, with the heat, I imagined I'd sit out in the garden. I was out for a while when I suddenly noticed tiny little insects landing on my skin. Closer inspection revealed they were all over me. So I fled indoors where I'm now sitting, sweltering, watching cricket on the TV

The cricket is a five-day international (or "test match" as they call them) England versus India. And England are on course to win, which is a rare event. Not that victories are common in any test match, since well over half of matches end up in a tie.

It's been a sporting summer in England, what with Wimbledon, and England's decent performance in the soccer world cup. And in Manchester, the Commonwealth Games are taking place. This unusual relic of empire is basically an Olympics-style event open only to countries in the British Commonwealth; that is, former colonies and dependencies. It's nice for England to compete in a huge sporting event where we're the favorites to win the most medals. True, the Commonwealth Games includes an astounding 72 countries. But most of them are very tiny, in sporting terms at least, with the only real competition coming from Australia and Canada. I don't think this event actually registers elsewhere in the world.

These two weeks staying with my family have played havoc with my accent. I've reacquired a host of little ideosyncratic words that are in common, if tongue-in-cheek, use in my family, particularly the ones that date from our upbringing in the North East. I find myself saying "Aye" instead of yes, and "alreet" instead of alright. It's probably a good thing to come back here every year to refresh my inherited accent. It'll give me a bit of color back in San Francisco where they just love our little old country. A funny English accent, with its trusty overtones, is usually good for such things as sympathetic seat upgrades on airlines, and certainly comes in handy if you ever get arrested.