All things must pass

As I sit here writing this, it's early Monday evening, the heat and humidity of today have speedily ended. We now have heavy grey skies and a chilly and gusty N wind and in the space of an hour or so our lengthy heatwave has dramatically ended. All of a sudden windows are being closed and the prospects of being able to sleep tonight, after weeks of sweaty insomnia, seem to be rising greatly.

But oh, what a joyous two or three weeks it has been, non-stop blue and sunny skies, and relentless heat baking the gardens and the countryside to a tinder dry yellowness. Well, I say joyous but cracks are running through the flower borders of my garden that you can put an arm down, making watering simply a waste of both time and water and the lawns are a crisp white-yellow colour. How much longer the plants and indeed the farmland crops, can hang on for without rain before perishing, is hard to know but no rain is forecast in the near future.

Last week saw me celebrate my 71st birthday and on one of the days my partner and I spent most of it visiting a couple of favourite spots in the Kent countryside, Reculver and Faversham Creek, both on the coast. Later, in the evening, we visited an Indian restaurant and then decided to visit a site near to my bungalow called the Shingle Bank, to watch one of our famous Sheppey sunsets. Half a mile from my bungalow the road runs from my village to the local town of Sheerness, with countryside one side and the sea on the other. Acting as a sea wall a high and wide bank of shingle has been created on to which you can drive and sit there looking out to sea. As twilight began to settle we took this photo looking east along the bank to the cliffs that form the high northern side of the Island.

Behind the cliffs and looking out to sea, my bungalow is among those in this next photo.

 And as the light faded, the sun began to settle in the western sky, it was almost 9.30 then.

The following day we drove in to the centre of Canterbury and treated ourselves, on a beautiful hot and sunny day, to an hour's punt trip (not us in the punt). The River Stour runs right through and at times, under, the heart of the city and to see some of the old buildings from that aspect was really delightful.

We actually went under that old building and out the other side.

 So, the last few weeks have blessed us with superb weather, though once or twice exceptionally hot, and we have thoroughly immersed ourselves in it. I have been going to the reserve at 5.00 in the mornings to enjoy the cool and stillness of it and so that little Ellie doesn't get too hot. Apart from trips out I have been going for daily cycle rides along the nearby sea front and countryside and it's been a real joy to live in shorts and T shirts.

I'll leave you with one of my favourite annual photos - the caterpillar of the Cinnabar Moth.