Lady fern

Both Chris and Alex were awake remarkably early, as their body clocks are still working on Malaysian time. Chris, Pete and I went out for a morning walk round Holme Fen - beautiful weather, lots of insects and Chris said it smelt so fresh after the Far East. The site is particularly good for ferns, including some fine shuttlecock-shaped plants of the delicately lacy lady fern Athyrium felix-femina, which is very rare locally.

In the evening we lit up the new kettle-barbecue I'd bought last week. It worked so much better than our old one - all the food was succulent with no heavily charred edges. Success!! It was lovely to eat outside, though in the end we had to retreat indoors, as Alex was feeling rather chilly after a month in temperatures rarely dropping below 30C, even at night.