I have a coffee, get dressed and make sure that I take a water bottle along with my cameras.
Thing about being up early in the morning is that there are so very few people about, just people like me, joggers, dog walkers. Sometimes we speak to each other, sometimes not. The leace and light of the cliffs is so special, and with there being so little wind, there was no sound of waves breaking at the foot of the cliffs.
I took the path next to the fence, and walk along scattering butterflies as I stomped. I only pass to other people, walking a single small, yappy dog. We wish each other good morning, but the dog had broken the silence, so I had my fingers crossed behind my back.
I saw so many butterfly species: Peacocks, Red Admirals, Small and Large Whites, Wall Browns, Gatekeepers, Common Blues, Painted Ladies, Small Copper and a Ringlet, as well as many plant species too, although the Autumn Gentians are yet to show.
On Kingsdown Leas I look for Long Tailed Blues, but even though the Everlasting Peea was in flower, I saw no gliding blue butterflies. But plenty of Chalkhills, and a very tatty Common Blue. I snap them all anyway.
A woman saw me staring at the wall of peas and asked what I was looking for. So, I explained about the Long Tailed, the other blues, the plants to see. She was amazed, she walked the cliffs every day and knew next to nothing about butterflies or plants. She was going to google some of what I told her.
I had to turn for home, as I really should have been working, but some fresh air, nature and silence would be the best for my mental health. I say silence, there were larks in the air, filling the silence with their songs. 
There are worse ways to spend the morning.I walk back through the gate into St Margaret's parish, then take the path beside the fence and golf course up to Barrow Down, through that and onto Kingsdown Road. It was warm, even hot, but good still, and I drank well from the water bottle too.
The Dip itself looks like I have never seen it, the rain through the spring and summer means that instead of being a dusty scar down each side of the valley, there is barely a path through the undergrowth, as plants grew between the tractor tyre ruts. And at the bottom, it was like a marsh, all stagnant water and long grass.
I walked up the other side and so on the final stretch to home, past Fleet House and across the fields to home, where I have a pint of squash, and after checking my mails make some toast and a fresh pot of coffee.
Work had not missed me, so I chill, then go for a shower to freshen up, do a cat-check, find two, and back to work with yet another fresh coffee to fire my engines. And I finish a task i have been on for a couple of months, write a summary and send it off.
How'd you like them apples?When I get up, my legs have aged quite badly and seem to question the wisdom of moving. At all.
The day clouds over, and gets even chilly. I close some windows. Put on a jumper.
Dinner is courgette fritters as they looked riper than the aubergines, so make a batch of batter and am ready to cook them when Jools returns. She has been working like mad as her boss has been visiting suppliers, so doing the work of two again. But she is on her holibobs from Thursday night, and I will be home alone for three days next week.
News later.Anyway, the usual evening: listening to the wireless, drinking coffee, writing blogs, editing pictures for said blogs.
Too tired to read at nine, go straight to be and sleep. I dream I was on an ADR course so I could deliver oxygen to where Jools works.
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