august

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there’s something special about august, it’s late summer with a tinge of regret, but at the same time it’s school holidays and beaches and sand-between-the-toes and silly season.

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the verges are full of seed heads and dry flowers that have finished, or the grass and plants are cut down and drying.

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the oak trees in the hedges are dark green, some full of pale acorns

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mornings are darker, misty and cool

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some evenings there is a harvest moon before the sun has gone down

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or there are wonderful displays of cloud

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our short evening walks always a pleasure

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I went on a bat and moth watching evening at Natural Surroundings on the Bayfield estate

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saw and heard wonders – five kinds of bat, including the one we heard but couldn’t see, Daubenton’s bat, which skims the lake there. more different kinds of moths, trapped the previous night, young harvest mice in a big aquarium ready to release, and slow worms, a whole shiny taupe wriggling mass of youngsters and one adult – which we released in the dark under a sheet of corrugated iron.

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morning skies are also a delight

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though some mornings we are up too late and the sun gets up a bit too fast and hot for us

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and tree shade is always welcome

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Cakes lane has more shade, but where the sun comes in it’s trapped and there’s no wind.

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mostly it is quite overgrown and the lower part a green tunnel

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flowering thistles

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too beautiful to cut

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Miss T has caught so many sweethearts in her coat that she’s looking exceptionally well groomed at the moment

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in the garden the chicory has outgrown the salad bed

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and ripe damsons fall

 

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