A sad day as FD left for the ferry home in the eve. Unless I go out to her we won't be seeing each other till next summer! Highly unlikely given my numerous animals, seasickness and dislike of the confined space of planes!! She called in for a last George Clooney and chat -  she has a stinking cold and 9 hours driving when she arrives in France! Colourful Mai also popped by with her son's puppy! A hyper chocolate lab whose eyes are just changing from blue. He was very calm when I held him but went hyper with FD!
Rest of day went by with tidying, washing, walking Portly and working on Day 2 - which is most likely to be blipped tomorrow now! Took Portly for a mid afternoon walk and did our usual walk in reverse, so got this view down into the village from the railway station.  It really felt like summer today - sunny and warm with that certain smell and sound of summer - I couldn't quite put my finger or senses on what made it so quintessentially summer - it just was! One thing for certain is the bites that have continued to appear on me! I think they are from the red mites!! They will bite anything! However I did do a bit of research on if and why only certain people get bit by the black flying blood suckers - apparently it is to do with blood type, the existence of secretors in 85% of people  which denote blood type, the wearing of black, blue or red, exercise and metabolism, bacteria, beer drinking, high levels of  carbon dioxide and temperature! Plus of course  genetic predisposition! I guess I'm a burping, sweaty, beer swilling, manic  Goth in that case!