Golden June

June is my favourite month. That's why I had my 50th birthday picnic in June 2014. February has always been rubbish for picnics in the UK....

1993: One of the best moments in June that I recall is breakfasting at 2, 000 metres in the High Tatra mountains (Slovak Republic) having spent the night in a bivouac hole. All around us we could hear the whistling sound of marmots, small animals that live among the rocks.

1976: A friend's grandparents took us out of boarding school for a birthday weekend. We visited Strathallan airfield and saw all the WWII aircraft. Then we made a little campfire (off the airfield) and made fried bananas in a small black cast-iron pan. We discussed cameras, and film. Ilford was reckoned to be the best. I was twelve years old.

This is the view from Steve's study window. The fields were green and golden with buttercups when I arose shortly before seven. The day was a long one, and I climbed in the evening, but finished early as I was getting to the point when I could easily have made a false judgement. As madchickenwoman says, roll with the tiredness! I am off to have a bath, and a long cosy read afterwards. Still reading about the breadmaking woman in Bread Alone (Hendricks). Finding it strangely comforting to read about the weather, and the bakery, in Seattle. I think I shall go there one day, even if it's only to look for Frasier Crane, who doesn't really exist! (I own all eleven series of Frasier, and I do lend them out, in case any one wants to know, though we live in the Netflix era.)