The Last Straw....

The days are bright, the thin blue skies signal the death throes of the summer sun. The mornings are nippy, the sun is just about lifting the gloom by 6am. At 6.30am the temperature starts climbing from about 5c. All the fields are now stripped of their crops, many are already ploughed out. The summer is over in all but two days. Always a sad time.

The warm glow of a coal fire, watching the rain through the window, and wrapping Christmas presents gives me a lot of comfort and pleasure but I'd prefer the heat of the sun on my back, the smell of the hedgerows, the squeak of the swallows and an ice-cream down by Derwentwater.

Only another eight months to go...