Wee stars ...

The hot weather seems to have brought a superabundance of colour to the verges as well as gardens this year - though I'm aware that the flowers in the garden are vanishing fairly speedily in the sun. I love these wild fuchsias - they're everywhere just now, and much to be preferred to the more fulsome cultivated ones. I almost fell into a ditch (dry) to get the angle I wanted on these ones, but am pleased with the result.

A less self-indulgent day, in that I had a meeting about sermons in the morning before I could abandon myself to the sun - I love these meetings, as they're a great chance for very focussed and generally mind-expanding conversation. I didn't actually feel like eating lunch in the garden because of the heat, but we did walk in the afternoon, on Loch Striven-side. We met a former colleague, one of the two chaps who took me climbing the big stuff 25 years ago, still walking as we are and feeling how essential it is to keeping us alive. We heard a skylark again, though could see no sign of it in the brilliant sky. 

And, talking of second and third chances with nature - the hedgehog put in an appearance again, at almost exactly the same time as yesterday as we sat drinking our aperos before dinner. It walked right down the centre of the path, round the flowerpots, and along the drain path to the hedge, where it disappeared. 

I'll be naming it soon ...