I've got my eye on you...

Yesterday's flower seems to have banished the grey skies, and I awoke to a perfect blue September morning, cool and clear. An auspicious start to autumn, but feeling more summery that it has for some time.

I went straight outside to walk round the dew-spangled garden, and the first thing that I noticed was snails, lots of them, climbing over the plants. Most were in deep shade, but this one had chosen a Sedum flowerhead, bathed in low sunshine, and looked at me almost quizzically as I wielded my camera.

This was almost the only moment of peace in a desperately busy day. I did an hour or so of report writing before setting off to Orton Pit for the butterfly monitoring transect and to help Alex negotiate his work placement for the coming year, which was successfully achieved.

Then back home, ten minutes for lunch, and off to Shuttleworth College for Alex's enrolment, dropping Pete off at Clophill on the way. We gotto the college by the skin of our teeth, thanks to an urgent need to stop for petrol, and the sneaky addition of a new roundabout which resulted in us turning into the Central Bedfordshire Council Offices. My language could have been better! But the enrolment went smoothly and we were soon picking Pete up, before returning home via a circuitous route so that I could check out a short stretch of hedgerow at Gamlingay, that I'd missed on my intitial visit.

We arrived home a little past five, and after a bracing cup of tea I returned to my report to find that none of the work that I'd done in the morning had been saved on the computer. I was close to tears at this point, but a relaxing glass or two of wine helped and I bravely battled on. Unfortunately the report's not finished yet, and I have a very early start in the morning, so I won't be commenting tonight - and possibly not tomorrow either!!