New month, new routine

Well perhaps…As the days lengthen to the craziness of midsummer I am waking earlier and earlier (our bedroom faces south and west and fills with light at about 4 am). Usually I lie and find something to fret about for an hour or so then drift back into a weird dream filled sleep, which leaves me frazzled, and I get up quite as late as ever. However, today Keith woke early too and, in some confusion, pointed out it was my turn to get the coffee. Only after I had delivered the steaming brew did he consult the time. It has to be said he was slightly horrified to discover that it was only just after 7am. I strongly suspect the coffee will now be getting cold whilst he catches up on some slumber. Though perhaps not….mysteriously the office has suddenly filled with mild jazz music. Has he switched it on from bed as an advance warm up exercise????? (Keith’s exercise music choices never fail to astonish). It’ll have to go – 7.30 am is no time for jazz, this is quite simply uncivilised.

That’s better, we are back to birdsong. No sign of Keith, perhaps a poltergeist..

Anyhow, being up and about, I decided that perhaps now was the time to get a new routine established. It has been hard to find time (absent rain breaks) to catch up with myself lately. (I seem to have been splitting all my time between the garden and shouting desperately into the void trying to get Dad’s banking affairs sorted. ) In the dark days of winter I subscribed (yet again – this is the third attempt) to a project which exhorts one to write 1000 words a day in June. My cunning plan for this year, therefore, is to start earlier. Mainly I am hoping to tackle another project (as you know I do love a project) but sometimes I’ll plink out this blog as a warm up, so apologies if they seem to come a bit thick and fast over the next few mornings. And if they don’t it might be a kindness to send me a few “Oi Lazybones!” type exhortations.

So, what has been happening aside from weeding, pricking out and shouting at RBS customer services?

Summer, that’s what.

The hedgerows are filled with billows of cow parsley and still bright with may blossom. There’s a particularly pretty pink patch in the hedge alongside Rick and Alison’s paddock. Gowans are smiling up at the sun and there’s a blaze of buttercups in every damp patch. We have reached the dusty blue phase in the wheat fields and all the oilseed rape has lost its flowers and set to seed – a mass of long narrow biscuit coloured pods, a bit like terrestrial seaweed, but spikier. Small, and very vociferous, light brown birds are nesting in the undergrowth either side of the main path. They dart up, spiralling cloud ward, as we pass, a flash of light golden brown with a lighter underbelly. By the song, which is incessant and enchanting, I am tentatively leaning to skylarks or linnets. I am secretly hoping skylarks and hum along with them (badly) to the Lark Ascending (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU-1zqUo80U.

Yesterday, Lyra and I turned off the main path and struck out round the fields to the south, heading for the longest warren. it was our first spin there for about a week, to find the “paths” were now waist high. I am now corralled to the two foot wide bare strip of mud around the fields whilst Lyra positively cavorts in the long grass, pouncing and pirouetting and stopping ever now and then to peer coyly back at me through the folds like some silent movie siren. By the sloshing I could tell that there was also a certain amount of ditch swimming going on. Thankfully the drainage ditches round the fields are a tad cleaner than those in Dundalk woods so no remedial hosing was required.

Keith has now appeared and demanded the return of the jazz. He is warming up for his cycling with a round of darts – ever the athlete – so the time has come to retreat to the kitchen and top up the coffee. 699 words banked!