Summer Soltice. 4.30 a.m. Longest day begins.

I woke (very early!) to birdsong outside and daylight already filtering through the curtains.
Summer Soltice here.
The longest day already unfolding.
Creeping out of bed I climbed the stairs up to the loft bedroom and took some photos.
A clear very fresh morning.
A date I will always remember for a few reasons...
One of them being the birth of my Great Nephew Ethan, 5 years ago precisely. I had just landed in Avignon, France, with my friend Cecilia, and we had been collected at the small airport by the couple who ran our week’s intensive French course.
As we were in the car en route to Nyons, in Drôme, a beautiful small French town in the lovely Barronies, my phone pinged. It was James, my nephew who lives in London, with the news that Ethan has arrived earlier that morning. A new brother for his 2 year old sister Roìsin. And a son for Fiona and himself.
It also marked our last time, Cecilia and I, of going to Nyons each year to take the course.I had been annually since 2004. Cecilia and I actually met for the first time at Birmingham Airport in 2007, when she was travelling to Nyons having booked herself the same week’s language immersion as myself. She had not long been widowed, her husband had been 62 years old, and our Matt had died the previous year in September.
We became firm friends and each year afterwards up to 2015, took ourselves off to stay and participate in the intensive but enjoyable week, in a town where, at that time, not many English people lived or visited. It stretched our grasp of speaking and listening when we were out and about. At dinner each evening, with our two hosts, they would also invite another couple of people who lived and worked in Nyons to join us, in order to stretch our ability to hold a conversation in French.
It is such a beautifully musical language.
So a very early blip this morning as hubby slumbers on, and time for a cuppa.
Looks like it will, at least today, be filled with sunshine.
Summer solstice 2020 in Northern Hemisphere will be at 22:43 on
Saturday, 20 June
All times are in United Kingdom Time.