This is Summer

Astonishingly, it is hot.

My garden is in shock:  alliums are collapsing under the weight of their own flowerheads, desperate for a drink.

Starlings are nesting in the eaves and wake The Girl at 5am.

The pheasants woke me this morning at 5.30 and I almost considered getting up there and then, as the sun was streaming through the curtains.  But I managed to hold out until 6.30.

The washing was on the line by 7 and I was painting the bathroom by 8.

Then there was intensive cleaning and tidying and squirrelling-away of things that didn't ever need to be where I found them.  The Sofa of Doom has been cleared!  I washed the throw and the cushion-covers and I scoured the floor.

Raspberry, Blueberry and Lime Drizzle Cake has been baked.  There is a chilli in the slow cooker.

At 3.30, The Boy and His Girl arrived with all their worldy goods and set up house in his childhood bedroom for the summer.  There are unusually-sized boots in the hallway.  The dog is running this way and that, in confusion.

The next few weeks will be a patchwork of children arriving and departing, with music festivals to attend and visits to be made to other outposts of this crazy mixed-up family.   FL and I will be here, waiting.  Getting on with the everyday as the young people come and go.  A quiet summer at home this year, I think.  Watching the barley grow.