Hot Summer Days

Saturday 23^rd June

The heat continues, which is great for drying washing in no time flat, but a bit hard on the old skin. Once upon a time I would be lying out there, soaking it up, lashing on the suntan oil and cursing the insect life, but those days are gone. It is also, dare I say, tiring. Even Tim the dog wallows around in the heat. He comes alive early in the morning and late in the evening. He’d happily go for a walk at 11 o’clock, but by then the lanes are darkness itself where the trees overhang. Moonlight makes the hay fields light grey but there is little depth perception in such poor light. Even with a torch I wouldn’t be going out there by myself, especially not after seeing the seventh episode of The Bridge. Scary!

The farmer is out cutting the hay. So far the field on the hillside across the lane has been done, and the funny little field tucked inside a ring of trees, and yesterday the field next to the asparagus plot (seven rows this year) was cut. The hay is drying where it fell, and in a day or so he’ll be back to turn it and then back again to bale it. He hasn’t even begun the bigger fields to the west of us, but they may belong to another farmer who is working to a different timetable. Some days we have the roar of tractors all around us with two or three zipping about. Country living is not always quiet! Nor are the fields easily recognised as belonging to a specific farm. There seems to be little logic to the way it works here; one farmer owns fields that are scattered around the locality instead of being one neat parcel as they so often are in England. It probably comes from marriages and inheritance amalgamating different bits over the years.

My writing continues. Most days I do at least an hour or so of actual writing on the laptop. Some days the writing comes easier than others. One day it was 580 words completed, the following day 901, and yesterday I completed chapter 32, the tricky bit where Matho escapes from a locked room. Soon I shall be at the end, and then will have to begin revisions on the paper version I brought with me.