Swifts and Swallows

A hot day, 30 degrees in the garden. I stayed in the relative cool of the house most of the time.

In the morning I made strawberry jam - the final lot for this year. One variety of the strawberries at the allotment have finished and the other variety are now producing less fruit and they are smaller than earlier in the season when I think they had access to more moisture deep in the soil. As I cooked I listened to a new audiobook - a novel based on a fictional account of the Italian prisoners of war who created the Italian Chapel in the Orkney Islands.

The afternoon disappeared under a haze of heat and feeling lethargic. I’m looking forward to some cooler, more energetic days.

As we walked Merlin in the early evening the grasses were sparkling in the sunshine. We returned and sat in the garden to cool off and watch the swifts, swallows and house martins flying high in the sky above our heads.