60.

Early October

The little owl stares at me with its pale yellow eyes and nods its spotty head. I like to think it is me that it looks at. It bobs its tubby, squat body and makes short yip, yip sounds. It is in an old walnut tree and I have a clear view through binoculars. These daytime, impatient episodes happen frequently. The owl brings to mind a scolding, aproned fishwife, overcome by this heat. And it is hot; the s.easterly winds are unusually balmy for this time of year. No rain has fallen for two months and leaves are dropping listlessly, not yet in their coloured glory. The well has half a meter of precious water left in it and doesn’t want to refill. Coarse weeds elbow up through the grass which is no longer grass but a drought scorched, bleached mat. I’m not complaining; what survives, survives. The flower meadow patches have done well with the Rudbeckia the champion. I shall have to wait until next spring to see what has really persisted in the sward.

I'm sure I heard the last bee eaters high-going south.
The brambles are a picture of orange, yellow and red, yes brambles along the roadside wires are beautiful in Autumn.
Citril finches, a cloud, apple green and pale gold flashing and chaffinch tails, rising and falling into the field. Plenty of seeds for them in this drought summer. Still a few clouded yellow butterflies on the wild Doronicum . It`s a plant I try to eradicate from the meadow but perhaps I should leave it for its pretty dandelion flowers, a late food plant.

Various birds have taken up their winter quarters already. The redstart is in the eaves morning and evening, the starlings congregate like a parliament on different levels of the roofs and wires that join up the village, the prime performer in good voice as always, and the crowd of sparrows gathers in the ivy with arguments and scuffles, giving away their hideout the minute they get together!

Emile is grumpy; he complains that I haven`t used enough ‘roundup’ on the invading oxalis. True, it is a thug; it marches its bulbils through the shrubs and grass but it has very pretty little pink flowers and clover like leaves which don’t start appearing until summer. He says it throws out its seeds and he does not want it in his potager. But he has been in a poor mood for days and I’m thinking it doesn’t have much to do with the oxalis or me after all.