Breaking Down

We had rain last night for the first time in a while.  I had been very confident we would, and so I hadn't done my usual round of watering everything.  It was cooler, fresher and gently misty this morning, a refreshing start to the day.  And so far as I could see, we'd had a gentle splash of rain, rather than the big thunderstorms the weathermen had promised, and which indeed arrived overnight not too far away, flattening flowers and fruit.

I had set up sound equipment for a funeral today, and left cabling in place ready overnight - piping the service from a small chapel not far from here into the community hall nearby . . . so I was a bit worried in case the rain did it damage.  I needn't have been, as so far as I could tell, they didn't have any there, even though it's not that far away from here.

Nonetheless, our spell of subtropical weather is breaking down, and we'll be back to something like a normal British summer by the end of the week, or so they tell me.  I don't mind, really;  I'll sleep a bit better if the nights are cooler and fresher, and I'm happy not to go a-watering every evening.  But there's still a bit of sadness in me to be at the end of what has been a super spell of weather if you like that kind of thing - and lots of people seem to.  Yes, it may have been a bit hot to work in, and to sleep in, but an hour or so out on our veranda with a good book or a cryptic crossword, a glass of decent ale and a pair of field glasses to hand:  well, I have enjoyed that of an evening.

The field glasses have been employed in following the antics of the many families of young birds that have turned up in our garden.  Yesterday, there were clouds of young blue tits - plumage much greyer than that of the parents;  this morning, a quarrelsome pack of chaffinches, doing exactly the things that young creatures of all kinds, human included, seem to do - picking fights and playing games with one another, begging off mother, and being a bit gauche and awkward as they learn the ropes.  I have to say, our local birds seem to have produced well this year!