heavy drinking

Much to my surprise the weather has been hugely warm. My surprise is enhanced because I was in England and on holiday last week, by the beach, and the sun was hot enough to cause spontaneous swimming as much as twice a day. Just to return to reality though, the sea water was still immensely cold; almost painful and certainly unwise for more than 15 minutes at a time.

I have been in the garden doing agricultural woodwork over this weekend, and fascinated by the year's progress as marked in my mind today by butterflies. We've had whites and beautiful large whites, gatekeepers, meadow browns, I suspect ringlets too. I had to release a peacock from the shed. A medium large orange/brown butterfly has been too illusive however. It is either a fritillary or a large example of a comma; the wings don't appear to be very cryptic, but the overall impression of colour would be right. Adding confusion was a sighting nearby on Thursday of something that was almost certainly a comma, and smaller.

The local bird population has been panting a lot and pressing themselves to collect the hot sun, presumably as a parasite control. I had a good sighting (for the summer time) of a wren on the trellis by the kitchen window and a stunning young female blackbird; very brown and still slightly speckled.

Working into the dusk I noticed the almost-full moon and hoping to repeat a sighting of a hedgehog I made last week, I moved round to sit with my back to the front-door and listened. The soundscape here has been very quiet today and the usual background noises were soft; a train going North, people locking up for the evening and shuffling windows to collect some cool (there has been a breeze today), cooling ticks from window frames and roofs. At the time marked by the emergence of the first half dozen stars I heard the snuffling and rustling progress of the hog. I think it must arrive under the pedestrian gate, cross the border and the front path and then go up the drive. I watched him/her cross the stones back into shelter over the path and could then only follow by sound again.

As I sat, the bright moon swung round and an apparently innocuous patch of cloud from the South grew slowly. I notice that this cloud flickered, lighting up like a fluorescent feature. As it approached closer I saw it thicker than I had thought; a patch of water vapour looking for trouble. By the time it was covering about twenty degrees above the horizon I could hear a faint rumble with it. A cloud concealing the arc-welder of the apocalypse? So far it has stayed over the Solent, but I think I detect the smell of rain for the first time in 18 days (or there about).

Eleven pm and the moon is hidden. The shrubs dance and creak. As I stand listening and sniffing the air for clues in the front door frame, the bathroom door slams and my office curtains wave. It could go either way, but the ground is thirsty.