Words are chameleon and summer verses can change into winter curses if uttered or written coldly without sincerity. The warmth and vitality of the sincere heart swiftly eviscerating into seemingly empty posturing by a misplaced verb read with eagerness. So I will choose what words to speak carefully for time is passing and it means much to let you know your future shall be as delicate and exquisite as the last rose that blooms in the autumn. All that shall see it shall be renewed for the days ahead and carry the hope that there is still love in the world to carry us through to spring.

On a lighter note we are going to Devon at the end of Sept with the girls from Stevenage that Nick used to work with. It’s our third holiday together and we always have a great time. Last year we baked bread in the Aga and got beaten by the girls at snooker. This year the manor house is high on a hill and has a starlight Jacuzzi situated at the top of a crennellatedtower…we cant wait for that. In Hungary it is possible in winter to take a hot thermal bath outdoors while the snowflakes fall around you so I think given this is the UK it will most likely be a bath in the rain with a cloudy sky and howling wind. But no matter, we’ll still have a great laugh.

Another great weekend has been and gone. A curry with Nick’s friends from Stevenage on Friday was a hoot and a wedding of a great couple Nick and I met at the last wedding of Bun and Kutie. I think I rather drank too much at the wedding and we can blame Rice and Nicoise for that (bride and groom.) It was a fabulous wedding. A perfect English summer day and an amazing wedding service with blue robed choristers in the small village church of Kings Walden. As the happy couple signed the register they sang the 23rd psalm (which is also the theme to the vicar of Dibley…a religious sitcom featuring Dawn French. If you haven’t seen it yet…doh!!! Where you been get the DVD? It is especially good because it is religious humour that doesn’t destroy the message of Christianity. I have put the music below off YouTube for you to listen to…you must get the CD of Choral Works by Howard Goodall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTIjlwIWFd8&mode=related&search=

The reception was probably the most extravagant I have ever been too…. (Not that I go too many.) Good old working boy me, more used to pie and peas in working men’s clubs (hee-haw.) Tattinger flowed like the clear, rushing melt water of a Himalayan river in spring underneath a cream linen sky (marquee.) There An Abba tribute band, Spanish guitarist and disco and the food was divine. So thanks guys for inviting us we had a great time and wish you every good thing for the future. And a special mention to your great friends from the village…real people with no pretensions and so very friendly. Hope you’re having a good honeymoon in Devon. Enjoy the pictures and music.

Write again soon.

Misty emerald drowned vistas crowd the senses as,
A summer swims in rain setting a world to growth
The perigee is past and the nights claw back swiftly
The time lost to the light, yet the plants still grow
Still rise up tall and shimmer in the dewed dawn
Into the height of summer made gloriously moist
So I wait patiently for a turn of days to come again
To feel once again skin warmly kissed by the sun
Yet for the moment I cannot but revel in the life
That rises from the earth and reaches for the sky

7th July 2007
Weeks and weeks of ceaseless rain have poured from the heavens. Perhaps that sounds like an exaggeration but I am being perfectly accurate. There are the odd intervals of sunshine and these always seem to occur when I am at work or driving to and from work. It’s not been very good summer so far…alfresco dusk suppers, hearty breakfasts consumed in the garden have been absent. One can only hope that it brightens up soon. As I make my sandwiches for work each day (salad on brown rolls if you want to know,) a grey squirrel sits atop the garage roof peering at me through the window. Most days it has sat there in the rain and looked so bedraggled, crouched upright on its hind legs like some type of miniature English marsupial. I relented yesterday and put out a dish of pine kernels and it had a feast. So this morning I put out some more but he hasn’t been around yet. I keep an eye out though.
With all this wet weather, both birds and insects have been almost absent. Which begs the question where do they go? Maybe I should try to get out more eh! Well I will if it ever stops raining.