Ticking Over

I slept most of the morning in the summerhouse, inexplicably tired after a good 8 hours in bed. The dog though, I could have throttled him! He lay on the wooden floor beside me, or on the rug, trying to sleep too but presumably too hot. And he fidgeted and stretched, and made so much noise that he constantly woke me up. I counted that he changed position sometimes three times a minute. Why was he in there anyway? There was shade on the terrace outside. Really, I could have murdered him. But when we retraced our walk of yesterday up past the wood pigeon he showed no interest in the carcase which the vultures had stripped, and I was proud of him again, no ghoulish tendencies there at all. He did what his nature told him to do yesterday, pounced on a hidden creature and wiped it out.

It's been glorious today, and between naps I've read a lot, either in the summerhouse or under the umbrella. The Darkling by Laura Beatty has finally caught my imagination despite having hung around untouched for months, and so I've been transported back to the Civil War, via the modern researcher's dilemma of how to bring a three-dimensional fullness to historical material that is of necessity bare and arbitrary. It reminded me of Possession by AS Byatt which I still regard as a classic, and a life-changing book for me. Alas there was cake left over from yesterday, a delicious Victoria sponge filled with butter cream and strawberry jam, so tea was nicer than usual at 4pm. And it's not the only cake I have: there's a chocolate one too. Whatever was I thinking of?

I'm still basking in yesterday's praise for the garden, and the view. I was asked if I ever just sat and admired both, and the answer was a too emphatic yessss. I do. Oh I do.