Return of the idyll

That last post was a bit gloomy eh? Truth is though, sometimes it's better to express those bad feelings rather than sit on them and let them fester. The wind died hours after that post - to be replaced - for one morning only - by Summer. Big Summer Blast. Blue skies, blazing heat. Wonderful.

By afternoon it was raining. After only two and a half days it has now stopped raining - though it is still a bit misty. The English language is surprisingly lacking in words for rain. Rain has many guises. The rain here is most often mist-like. Usually it's driving mist which can be very wetting but can also be very refreshing. For the last couple of days we've had torrential mist - very wet, very heavy but also very fine, and quite silent. And an awful lot of it.

Last night I popped outside to check that it was still raining - and indeedy it was. And the scene by our cottage door was of a hedgehog eating the cat food. One cat eating a rabbit, and the other cat torn between jealously watching the hedgehog and jealously watching her daughter devour rabbit. I mean, I ask you, on a scale of 10, how high does that score for blissful ruralism?

Meanwhile I'm trying to knock out a tender for the building works on the house. I'd drafted it and asked a pal in the trade to comment on it. He didn't exactly tear it to shreds - but after I've absorbed all his comments it will look very different from my first draft - and a good few acres of trees longer to boot.

But I'm also working (shock horror) - got a bit of consultancy work and this needs to take precedence. And I've got a brew to be bottled, an accountant to see this week (hopefully) and still the behemoth of the grant application for our empire building to complete. Hey ho. Onwards onwards.