A Month in the Country 25 - Take a Note, Ms. Cawley!

Hot sun...hard shadows

The hottest Late Summer Bank Holiday on record here in the UK, apparently…it certainly felt like it this afternoon. 31C.  We've had a very lazy day - a bit of pottering in the potting shed, followed by a large lunch; we utterly greedily over-indulged on the runner beans, which we now have growing here in abundance, just because we could - and ate them along with some delicious roast peppers and a linguine pasta bake (with loads of added garlic!)

After that lot there was not much more that could be done, other than wilt... and repair to the summerhouse with my 'survival basket',  where I spent a couple of hours alternating between reading and snoozing and writing.

Book, journal, pen, camera, drinks, phone

Too happily drowsy to even do much writing - so I just captured thoughts and images as notes, without really trying to make sensible sentences. Surprising, though, how I still ended up with a snapshot of a hot summer's day that really seems to have captured the essence for me. Here are some of the images that settled in my eyes and ears this afternoon

• Blue-tits landing in the trees around the pond
• Filling up the St Francis bird bath
• Tinkling laughter of children playing tennis across the road
• Two groups of twittering birds in the hedgerow
• The hollow 'Tock, tock' of the Woodpecker on the old tree stump in the ditch
• Much more metallic 'Tak, TAK' of a Thrush, hammering a snail shell to bits
• Wind through the Japanese wind chimes
• A faint rustle from the bamboo around the pond
• Sunlight filtering through white Hydrangeas
• Background hum of the Newbury bypass - wind in the wrong direction
• A lovely, dippy-into book (''The Canary Coloured Cart' - Christina Hardyment)
• Snoozing and snoring!
• Flash of white butterfly over the pond
• Bumble bee into the summer house. Did a Circuit - out again, and off  across the garden to the Buddleia
• Beginning to think of Coffee &Tea break
• Squealing call of a young Red Kite to mother in woods.
• Little spider just ran up my arm
• Souped up motorbikes roaring past again.
• No more snoozing!

Journal prompt - Capture the next  scene or event in your journal by making a word picture out of glimpses and phrases of what you are experiencing, rather than elegant full sentences. What can you see? Hear? Taste? Touch? Smell? (This journal technique is so useful when travelling - you can always expand the images into fuller stories later).

White 'Annabelle' Hydrangeas in the Sophia garden

 

Comments

[Mad Englishwoman]

Thank you for pointing out the difference in tapping sound of a woodpecker and a thrush - I've never known how to tell. So glad that someone else found yesterday afternoon too hot to do anything 'useful'.