A slow dance with the heat....Mickey attack...Clearing out the past....and Gymnastic Girl

Bank holiday Weekend

The hottest since records began apparently.

I'm in my element. 

My soul flips into a slow dance with the heat.

I have an idea, when I'm awake in the night...sitting on the window sill....gazing at the glorious canopy of stars above me and the air is silk on my face...that I could sleep outside.....maybe in the summerhouse. 

So in the morning I empty it out.....sweep out the spiders and their webs with a long handled brush ....pull out  the strands of  ivy creeping through the wooden slats....I get sticky hot and filthy... it reminds me of working in Fiji on my brother's farm....so abandon the cleaning and lie on a blanket in the shade and read till I fall asleep. 

Although the days are blue and burning, the early mornings are shrouded in mist.....

I can't resist slipping through this open gate and 

walking along the rows of stubble barley ...taking in a much more open view compared to the one I have between the high hedges of the footpath...but I'm thwarted at the far end of the field...the hedge too thick...and I have to re-trace my steps. I feel I've trespassed .....glad the mist is dense at the brow of the hill so I'm not spotted....but I love this glimpse of wideness anyway.

Blackberry..

black slug..

 black Sloes...

Black cap...

Sheep in a mist...

This is Mickey who took extreme exception to me on Sunday morning when I was walking back through the  sleeping village.... ran at me and barked and barked and followed me, still barking, till people opened their windows to see what the commotion was about ....a man came out in his dressing gown, followed by his wife who tried to calm the dog down ....till finally the angry voice which had been calling 'Mickey Mickey' appeared in his tracksuit, and shouted at him to Come Here and apologised to me.

It felt such a personal  attack from such a tiny dog....I was afraid he was going to bite my ankle.....he came so close with such fierce intention and all I'd done was walk along the road. Maybe he didn't like having his photo taken. Fair enough. But he came for me before I took a picture.

I've always been a bit wary of dogs ever since I was chased by one as a child ....gave me terrible nightmares which I can still recall.

Later when it's cooler I clear out more junk from the garage and the mower shed...including stuff left by my predecessor .... pile it into the back of the car, and take it, the next day, along with the summerhouse contents - old dusty rugs and bamboo blinds -  to the re-cycling centre.

I also take a load of black plastic bags full of my old clothes to the  charity shop, book an appointment for a kitchen designer to come and measure up next week, and buy sage green timber paint for the summer house.

But it's too hot to paint....it rains in the night....maybe the moment has passed for sleeping under the stars.

But it did take me to a big clearing out of the past...of things that are mine and things that  never belonged to me....taking ownership of this space in a way I haven't done yet. And I will paint the summer house ......even if I don't sleep in it. 

This morning  I walk with an umbrella in the fields...

the rain constant and heavy.... but the air  tropical warm.

I spend a marvellous afternoon with my delightful and adventurous five and a half year old great niece and her grandma...playing imaginary games in the woods...shooting wild boar and deer with bow and arrow...preserving the carcasses with salt for the coming winter.

And then exploring further into the deep wood and finding two real badger sets, with fresh mounds of   caramel coloured sand piled up outside the cave holes dug into the side of the steep bank.

We all agree that this is exactly the kind of adventure that Grandpa Merfyn (my father) would be having if he was here now. I love it that she knows about him and knows she is following somehow in his fearless and sometimes hair-brained and risky footsteps. 

And at one point when the path looks seriously dodgy and slippery and steep she says,

"Follow me. I know what I'm doing. I'm gymnastic girl." And she certainly is.

Driving home at dusk I slow down for this scuttling partridge crossing the road....and stop to take this rather ordinary sunset as I approach the village. It's one thing I miss here  - I don't see the sun setting in the summer because it's always behind a thick high hazel hedge screening  the allotments on the far side of the road opposite my house.

But I love it anyway - a streak of gold behind the hills. And I aways have the hope  that comes with the certainty of sunrise tomorrow morning. Blazing or cloud-hidden....always there.