Early September

A quick walk along the road to the surgery with my compact camera in my pocket provided three blippable photos: although none of them are great images, they give a flavour of this time this year. The acer is a fairly young tree in the roadside verge, with pretty blossom and seeds as well as richly coloured foliage, and is always lovely in good light. Just as I returned home I saw the cloud of dust from the combine harvester on the skyline, which, at first glance, looks suspiciously like a tank. I enjoyed the silhouette, but then thought about how it might feel to have tanks appearing on one's skyline, and the precarious lives so many in the world currently lead. Finally, the dandelion surrounded by dry grass shows the state of the Triangle, one of our village green spaces, and of most of the grass around here after weeks and months of drought. There is still no rain forecast. At home, we carry cans down the garden to water the vegetables, but everything else is tinder dry. This is the longest period of drought since we moved here in 2013.