Midges and mellow fruitfulness

I live in a hotspot. Not a Covid hotspot: no - there are plenty of those elsewhere. But we live in an area much plagued by midges, and there have been strangely few of them this summer. Phew, we thought: we've got away with it this year. Not a bit of it. We emerged from church this morning into bright sunlight - except that the shadow of the church building covers more than half of the car park in the late morning - and were attacked, assailed even, by multitudes of the common midge. We took them home in the car with us too. And this is significant because ...? Because it's October. It's been chilly. It's high time they were hibernating, or whatever it is they do. Midges in the mouth are almost enough to make you put your mask back on ...

I had a moment of hilarity during the service. I was reading the first two lessons, and the epistle was the passage referring to two women of Philippi called Euodia and Syntyche. And as I sailed confidently through the passage, negotiating their names with the smugness of The Reader Who Did Her Homework, I was gripped with the aural fantasy of these two names being substituted for Jennie and Jessie in a Glasgow radio comic programme of my youth. Played by men - one of whom was Andy Stewart - Jennie and Jessie went in for long, rambling discourses in a thick Glasgow accent, repeating one another's names at every turn. And I wanted to hear Euodia and Syntyche doing that very double act, and the thought shook me with all but uncontrollable mirth. The pandemic strikes us all in different ways ...

Later I went for a walk all by myself, Mr PB having conceded that perhaps it was time to start looking after his poorly knee. I made the interesting discovery that I walk far faster if I have no-one to talk to. It's not just the energy required for conversation; it's something to do with ...not looking silly? Which in itself is silly, considering my audience consisted of sheep, a flock of noisy geese and two disdainful horses with coats on, watching me over a hedge.

And yes, of course I took photos. I'll post an extra* of a rather attractive muddy lane leading to a field. My main photo comes from my garden.

* Culled on Christmas Eve to give me an extra extra!