Mirabelles

This is the first year that we've had a significant crop on the still-young mirabelle plum tree. As with the other fruit in the garden, this year's weather has really produced a glut. They're just on the point of ripening now.
I spent a couple of hours round at Jack and Marianna's this afternoon, entertaining Frieda while M packed for their trip to Greece tomorrow. J will stay here to work for another week, before joining them.
F was on good form, very excited about it all. J and I had a bit of a catch-up about his various work projects, while he also printed the portrait of Richard's sister Diana and her companion Matt that I made while we were in Larne last month. I'll get that in the post to Diana tomorrow.
I feel I should at least acknowledge the range of stuff in the domestic and international news, ranging from the fairly awful (has Starmer really appointed a former Sun editor to be the govt's communications chief? Yes, he has...)  to to the completely despair-inducing (more starvation in Gaza, more Israeli murders of starving people).   But today I just feel too weary to do it...