Summer on the balcony

It was the first time since returning home that I have taken my coffee and book to the balcony, and it was half an hour to savour. This is the final part of Ali Smith's quartet about the past few years in the dystopian place so many of us have found ourselves living in. I started reading it the day of J's surgery, and had not returned to it till now, but I'm finding it absorbing. Autumn was interesting and rich, Winter felt rather slow going to me, though that may have more to do with my life at the time than with the book, and I liked Spring a lot. I also love the Hockney covers. 

The balcony tomatoes are looking rather puny, they were planted out too late and had become tall and straggly, but they are now fruiting reasonably, and in this sheltered corner they should continue well into the Autumn. They are Mountain Magic, a blight resistant variety, and in previous years have indeed stayed alive when the potatoes and other tomatoes have succumbed; they are the only tomatoes I now grow outdoors.