Sunday 3rd September 2023

With the temperatures on the rise once again, any walk has to be done early.

Or should be, but being a snapper of butterflies meant having to wait until the mist cleared.

So there was plenty of time for coffee, fruit, more coffee, bacon butties and another brew, all the while looking for when the mist would clear outside.

By which time it was nearly 11, and although on the field there were no signs of Clouded Yellows on or just above the Lucerne, there were whites, including this mating pair of Small Whites, though the female was as yellow as they can get.

I have to say that by the time we got to Fleet House and I looked down the slope past the farm to the mud baths and puddles that laid there, any desire to walk any firther left me. It was also hot, not warm, but hot, so leaving Jools to go on alone, I walked back along Collingwood, snapping shots of wild flowers as I went, then cutting back down onto our street and home where a pint of iced squash went down very well indeed.

There was football too, the last games before the international break, so I settled down to watch the first of the games, and Jools even came inside as the patio was just so hot in the sunshine.

The hot temperatures was great for bread making, so I rustled up a large focaccia for dinner to go with the carbonara I was going to make, which we ate just before the end of the first game and before Arsenal played Man Utd, which ended 3-1 to the Arse and was more exciting than we though with the two winning goals coming in the 96th and 100th minute.

Wine and hot temperatures on a long and quiet Sunday afternoon means snoozing or longer periods of more serious sleeping.

Time then to prepare for the week ahead and take part in #wildflowerhour on what used to be called Twitter.

So it goes, so it goes.