What I thought was a leaf floating on the water in a bucket turned out to be a cricket. It was flat and limp and I thought it had drowned. But it went from 2D to 3D after I rescued it. Two hours or so later it had gone – had it hopped away or had a blackbird got it?

Meanwhile, Felix was riveted by the sight of a flock of waxeyes which descended on the Japanese Anemones and roses outside the window. Next minute, he was out getting amongst it – but the birds were long gone by then.

This guy looked to have his life sorted on the beach this morning. My brother-in-law pointed out that he probably used a drone to take the lines out beyond the surf. Sure enough, when I zoomed in I could see a drone beside him.

I grew up in a culture of fly fishing in which other forms of fishing were ‘chuck and chance’. This form of surf casting is next level: ‘drop and wait’?

When I’m considering wearing socks I know summer is over – yet in my last post it seemed it would never end. Now the heat pump is on. The temperature has plummeted in the last couple of days, the sun doesn’t come up until closer to 7am than 6am, and when it’s shining (which it isn’t right now) it creeps further across the windowsills on the north side of the house. On a couple of days I haven’t taken the cover off the egg chair, while last week I had to wait for the sun to go off it before it was cool enough to sit in. Sigh!

The lawn looked as if it was going to turn yellow at one point, but the episodes of rain we’ve had have kept it green and the garden growing well. The ‘salad bar’ is still ready for action so I hope there’ll be a few days when summer does a reprise. Right now it’s soup or scrambled eggs with toast on the menu.

I imagine the people attending the music event, Electric Avenue, in the park today and tomorrow would rather die of hypothermia than be seen wearing a jersey but might be able to keep warm by leaping about and mushing together in the mosh pit.

Post Script: Wouldn’t you know it? The sun has come out. Cicadas are chirping. I’m going out to sit in the egg chair.

For tonight’s dinner, I had the satisfaction of harvesting ripe tomatoes to pop in the pot.

There are plenty more tomatoes for the next time – and more yet to ripen.

While it’s much easier to open a tin of tomatoes, the effort of growing your own is something else!

In December 2024 I wrote a post about repotting my aloe vera which had become too big to keep inside. I needn’t have been concerned that it wouldn’t grow outside. This summer it produced a spike over half a metre tall (66cm in fact) from which elongated trumpet-like flowers emerged. It was intriguing to watch – my home-grown variation of the ‘corpse flower’ in the Botanic Gardens which people queued to see.

Today, the last flower is fading at the tip of the spike. The plant is on more of a lean than it was, probably because Felix tried to climb it this morning. Incriminating evidence: his fur all over it, and the thumping and scrabbling noises he made as he fell between the wall and the pot – which was where he was when I looked out the window. However, the plant seems to have a firm foundation, having grown massively since I repotted it – quite a change from the wobbly little plant it was when my nephew gave it to me in 2021.