The threatened heatwave arrived this morning – though it’s forecast to be much worse tomorrow and Wednesday. Nonetheless, it was more than hot enough for me. I’m a true north European, and while I can stand for hours in a freezing field waiting for a bird, and consider it time well spent, anything above about 25°C makes me want to go and lie down in a darkened room.
When I walked down the lane at about 9.30am in search of butterflies or odonates it was already too hot for my comfort and theirs, and bar a single Emperor patrolling the village pond, which I didn’t waste my time and energy trying to follow with the camera, there was nothing interesting to be seen. So it was very lucky that when I got home and wandered down the garden I found a little clutch of demoiselles down near the brook. There were two quite fresh female Beautiful Demoiselles, of which this is the one that hasn’t lost a leg and part of one eye (ouch), and two or three Banded, and except for the male Banded, who’s always been a bit hysterical and doesn’t yet seem inclined to calm down, all of them obligingly sat for their portraits.
Back at the house I was sitting under the big patio umbrella with a cold drink when the urge to do some gardening suddenly came over me. Don’t, I thought. You’ll only regret it. But I didn’t get where I am today, etc., etc., – and more to the point, the patch of red valerian that had drawn my attention was looking much too shabby to make a nice backdrop for photos of the Hummingbird Hawkmoth I was hoping might turn up at some point. So I got the power secateurs (bless you, Mr Stihl, and all who sail in you) and cut out the dead bits. This turned out, by the time I’d ripped out some dead cerinthe as well, to be a substantial barrow load, which meant that by the time R arrived back from lunch out with a friend and said, “Oh my goodness – you’ve been gardening!” I was able to adopt a finely-tuned expression somewhere between martyrdom and smugness and say with entirely justified modesty, “Only a bit.”
This evening it rained for half an hour or so, which did virtually nothing to lower the temperature but did at least mean that I didn’t have to water the patio pots. What we really need is a nice thunderstorm, but there’s no sign of one on the 10-day forecast.
R: L2, C10, D32.
