Welcome to a very tropical Beaminster! It seems that, for once, the PCT’s heatwave health promotion campaign has not doomed us all to a cold, wet summer, and everyone is enjoying the warm weather. Our new restaurant, The Wild Garlic, of owner Masterchef Mat Follas fame, is also booming, with waiting lists for tables for the next six weeks – the launch last month seems to have got them off to a flying start.

We are also in the midst of Beaminster Festival, an annual arts and music festival that seems to be bringing in the tourists – local handmade soaps are flying out of the door. So at the moment life seems good – the baby even came second in the festival fancy dress competition in her homemade mermaid outfit!

However, the heat is making life a little unbearable in the dispensary – it took me nearly an hour to pluck up the courage to tackle the repeat prescriptions this afternoon, and even then it was only after an enforced ice-cream break! The plus side is that high temperatures seem to make people more impulsive in the shop, which is great for takings, though it won’t be so good if they all decide to go to the beach instead…

All this optimism almost has me convinced that next week’s launch of Eli Lilly’s selected wholesaler scheme will succeed in solving the Zyprexa stock shortage overnight – as their customer services team assure me it will. And if the heat keeps up like this I’m half expecting prescriptions for Cornettos!