Goodnight friends! 22°c or so and mostly clear, only a few lonely banners on a field of bright azure. Full-size grasshoppers in the golden meadows now, all gone deep gold barred in stripes of shadowy umber. Ripples of silence around my footsteps as the sizzling songs – an overwound clockwork drone and a high, keening buzz – pause, then a soft chorus of tok, pek, tak and the bounce of stems and leaves as the singers flee. Dusty pink spreads across the small wild apples, mowers have short away the pretty purple bristles of knapweed. More shrill, yowling vulpine screams mark out disputed territories in the night, thankfully cool and not too humid for now.
Recovering still. A little worse through the morning maybe, a mild exertional malaise, but beginning to feel a bit more mobile and coherent by evening. Walking cautiously, but gradually bits of writing starting to jigsaw back together. Revitalised and inspired by a chat on the phone with a friend.
May we open oursleves to new experiences and new ways of thinking and being today!
Image ID: Photo of a prickly blackberry cane arcing up against a bright blue sky, ending in a wide starburst clump of swelling fruits, each made up in turn of a tight cluster of dozens of tiny still-green druplets.
