Midsummer

Midsummer always takes me by surprise. The warm weather has only just begun and suddenly- bish, bash, bosh- summers's half way over. 

Cat Behaviour

I don't think Marlowe ventures into the fields by himself but if I go he'll follow. Just now I was out there gathering up the saplings Matthew's chap had felled- and as I was approaching the bonfire site with an arm-full a large ginger beastie took off at speed- in alarm, I suppose, at the ungodly rustling noise I was making. He didn't run far. I called to him and he was waiting for me, stretched out, on the far side of the gate. We's good buddies, him and me, daring hunstmen together...

Sick Heart River: John Buchan

Sir Edward Leithen- suffering from incurable TB and hoping to die on his feet- undertakes a search for a missing man in the Canadian Arctic.  This- though I don't think he knew it- was to be Buchan's final novel. Sombre, philosophical and rather beautiful, it makes a fitting last testament.