32.

July 25th.




The garden is overflowing with food of all sorts, with tomatoes, beans, salads, carrots, herbs with more aroma than I have ever smelled before, and potatoes.
Every day I go on a Colorado beetle hunt. Looking like mini humbugs, they creep to the undersides of the potato leaf, lay their patches of bright yellow eggs and munch through the foliage and stems. Then they drop to the ground to continue their damage on the roots. What is interesting is how they feign dead. I pick them off and place them carefully on a hard surface. I'm going to use the full force of my foot. But they lie inert, legs in the air, not a wiggle or wave. Do they know? I've tried the trick of turning and getting on with something else. When I turn back, they have righted themselves and are marching off with all six legs. If I stay poised over them with murderous intent, they don’t move for what seems like minutes, and I’m not very good at waiting those minutes to complete the research. The eggs need crushing too, so I spend inordinate time examining each leaf. I could spray, I know, but have resisted this, so far. I did make an evil smelling stew from all the illegal fag ends from the local bar, to the grand amusement of the owner, Antoine. ‘ Madame Alees, la jardinière, ah, ha !’ He greets me regularly, like this, and has invariably, a thin fag stuck to his bottom lip. He does wear T shirts and cool clothes and has been known to sport flip-flops.

After boiling up the butts with water in an old tin, I strained it and diluted it and began to spray the nicotine solution onto the plants, with a tied scarf over my nose The beetles were still happily busy, two hours later. For further research, I took one beetle and placed it in a jam jar. Then I sprayed the tan coloured liquid into it and waited. Lo, the creature was dead within half an hour. Maybe I shall have to refine the technique; on the other hand, my time consuming, murder campaign might be less carcinogenic.

The strawberries have come to an end and the raspberries and blackcurrants have just been harvested. I'm carefully examining the Reine Claude greengages for signs of insect damage. They will be lusciously ripe in about another month.
No birds sing except the crows and ravens, the buzzards and kites and sometimes a blackbird. All that twittering, hectic row has subsided. I hear a lark sometimes but the cuckoos and nightingales have left for another continent and thrushes, goldfinches, tits and warblers have either departed or are in a period of depressed moulting and are keeping advisedly low profiles.