nature – Page 26 – don't confuse the narrator

summery II

Another summery picture to mark the fact that although yesterday was the longest day, today the sun will actually set later.**

As Rimbaud said in his poem Roman: Les tilleuls sentent bon dans les bons soirs de juin! – lindens smell sweet on fine June evenings. What he didn’t say is that they smell sweet all day long.
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summery

Well, I managed to miss the solstice sunrise, but it does look quite summery outside the window.

There again, my idea of what summer looks like has been changed by years of living in Spain.

Forgetting for a moment about the rain and the cold that is more often the reality, I think of British summer as pale and hazy, delicate and frilled, in pastel shades of strawberries and cream.

It’s honeysuckle, gypsophila and sweet peas; strappy sandals, pretty print frocks and matching cardigans.

In Spain, though, summer is brash and solid and in-your-face.
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who you gonna call?

If there’s something strange
in the cherry trees

Who you gonna call?
Bugbusters!

visitors

This creature was buzzing outside my window this morning, investigating all the cracks and crannies that might give access to the space that the old blind used to roll up into.

Folklore says that if a bumble bee comes into the house it means you’re going to have a visitor. I don’t know what it means if a hornet comes into the house via the pelmet box. But perhaps I should be prepared for a lot of visitors with nasty stings.

great oaks and giant redwoods

Wildflowers and grasses
dwarf my three-year oak.
The spring breeze whispers:
Patience! Time will tell.

Of course the tree in the picture isn’t the “three-year oak”. (Though I think the little one would be quite a bit taller if it hadn’t been accidentally strimmed a couple of times in its first year!)

The photo is of one of the trees on the neighbouring plot.

They tower over our greenhouse and when the wind blows in autumn, acorns skitter across the flat roof and I am tempted to run like Henny Penny to warn everybody that “the sky is falling!”
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