Piccadilly Circus

Really, it's been like a busy metropolis out there for the past few days. For the second night running combines and balers and tractors have been thundering up and down the fields and lanes getting in the wheat, bundling up the hay and piling it all away while the weather is still fine. The giant storage barns behind Sarah's house are the focus of all the activity: grain is being offloaded from the trucks into the storage areas, to be sealed off from rats and other vermin until they are taken away for grinding into flour. Dust has risen all day from the fields to merge with the sunlight as the race against the oncoming rain has been in full pelt. It's been so dry. What a summer. It must be one of the best harvests on record.

Today I had two lunch invitations, from Ruth and Helen. I'll be seeing Helen on Wednesday, so Ruth and I met up at Snape for a pannini and a walk. It was heaving, full of summer visitors. I think Benjamin Britten might have turned in his grave to see the crowds, there for every attraction apart from his music. We went into the big shop and hunted for birds, as R is making a birdcage and wants some lifelike inhabitants. The cage is a disused lampshade. She never runs out of ideas.

Sasha has been walked on the lead all day since she's returned to her evil ways. No charging around the fields unchecked for her for a few days. It's back to the draconian measures, ignoring her when I come down in the mornings, pretending to eat her food before giving it to her, the old alpha routine. Such a bore. I don't know why she has this horrible streak. Hopefully once the fence is in place she'll be happier. Meantime we're getting ready to entertain Nigel and Sue to tea tomorrow. The chocolate cake I bought for them on Saturday has all gone, and I've replaced it with a carrot one. I didn't eat it all, really I didn't. But once you start something you might as well finish it, get rid of temptation. That's my philosophy anyway. And why I'm so fat.