Out of Steam

Around this time of year, every year, I hit the buffers. It's as if there's no fuel left in the tank and I feel like the engine has almost come to a stop. The end of term is almost here, the garden looks exhausted and my two little men (and the bigger one too come to think of it) are worn out.

Thankfully our holiday is almost, almost here. In six short days we will be listening to the seagulls call and the waves crash in at our most favourite little holiday place in the world. Yippee!

Funny how everything seems to have been winding down, a bit like the slow motion button has been pressed and we won't gear up again until September. And a good thing too. Never fear though, my thrifting continues unabated! I've gathered up a few special little treats in the past few weeks, all in my usual vein though and not exactly revolutionary but I'm too whacked for much beyond the obvious.

I work for the NHS and as you might have heard we're going through a pretty radical and scary time so there's something comforting about familiar things and I think you can see that from my pictures. Pretty flowers from the garden, lovely old ladybirds, a fab and zingy coffee pot, a rather pretty and indulgent dress, some soothing reading matter and gorgeous bargain fabric for making cosy autumn curtains. All very me.

Who knows what things will look like in the next few months and if I'll even have a job? But I refuse to panic, (not much point really), and I am working very, very hard trying to get an alternative sorted instead.

So the holiday has come at the perfect time. Hopefully the weather will sort itself out while we're down south. This week has been dreadful for July (although pretty typical for the Julys we've been having recently); chilly, lashing rain and gales. The garden and the allotment really need the downpours to be honest but a week's plenty, really, I've had enough now!

So I'm off to pack and plan and will be back soon with tales of cliff top views and beach picnics. Can't wait.

High Summer

Summer days - very full and very busy. But these are special times to be savoured for when the wind is howling around the house.

There are sports days to cheer at and much picking of peas and digging potatoes to be done. And there are other people's glorious gardens to visit, to marvel at their planting skill, buy yet more plants and eat delicious cake in cool, bunting strewn barns.

Back home I set to; already it is time to cut back the geraniums and the catmint so it will flower again in late summer. Where is the year going? Later as the evening light mellows, there is time for sitting back and smelling the pinks, roses and peonies - and maybe munch a bit more cake!

Later still. although it's not fully dark, the sounds and sights of the summer night drift in through the bedroom window:

• The hiss and drip, drip of next door's hose
• A croaking frog in the border
• The lowing of young bullocks in the field over the road to the dairy herd in the valley field, already laid down to sleep
• Flittering, fluttering pipestrelle bats
• The occasional sleepy twitter from the housemartin chicks in the nest in the eaves above our window
• The rumble and clatter of lots of tractors and trailers and bright orange lights as the farmers bring the June hay home
• A sliver of sparkling moon in the still blue-tinged sky
• Chatter and laughter blown up of the breeze from the canal side pub down the lane
• Beautiful twilight and the first stars peeping awake

But above everything is stillness. The year has turned and although we don't feel it quite yet, the slide through high summer has begun.