Nature Notes

The Mediterranean countries are burning up but Britain is cooling down. The two things are probably linked, but I don't know how. The blue sky is full of clouds- low down fluffy ones and high up ones that look like they've been strained though a sieve. The long term forecast suggests that our high hot summer is over.

I have let the grass grow long round the edges of the garden and round the bases of the saplings and garden statuary but the feathery plumes are getting saggy and ratty now and I've started cutting them back. Wherever there are wild flowers I will hold my hand until they go to seed. 

Ailz got into conversation yesterday online with neighbours who were venting about gulls. She stood up for the gulls and got more likes than the sour people who want them culled. Had I joined in I'd have said how odd it is that people will pay money to watch airplanes do sporty things in the air but completely ignore the far superior show the gulls put on for free.  Gulls are beautiful in flight and endearingly comic on the ground. We have no trouble with the pair that have laid claim to our garden. I think they're smart enough, tuned in enough, to know when people are hostile to them- and that's when they get hostile back. Be their friend and they'll be yours. I love them. Is that too strong a word? No, I don't think it is.