midsummer

January heralds in the long days of summer - pasture aglow with tall grasses, walks in the shade, wearing skirts and sandals, spending time with old friends, picking feverfew and lavender which are flowering all over the garden, spying wilted leaves, butterflies and moths and wasps, tiny huntsmen spiders, cloud formations and rumbling thunder, laundry dried stiff by the hot air, picking up our anniversary quilt after a year of idleness and making lines of stitches, sipping cold ginger tea and scooping homemade ice-cream, playing board games with the boys, swinging in the hammock, dam swims before dinner, beginning a new diary, opening the house at dusk to let the night breeze in...