Sunny!

What is it about the sun in the UK that makes everything feel so much better?

We've had a glorious recent Bank Holiday - a bit different to two years ago, when Mr Squidge insisted on a Bank Holiday Barbeque and ended up cooking under a gazebo in the pouring rain, while the thunder rumbled overhead... This year, we barbied with friends in the field we part-own, in blazing sunshine.

I love to feel the heat of the sun on my skin - it gets a certain 'holiday smell', have you noticed that? - but I am more careful nowadays than I used to be. Lots of high factor suntan lotion, or sit in the shade...but that makes writing - especially typing on a laptop - difficult because you get so much glare.

Not this year... I've been sitting on a bean bag, typing away in the garden room, with the doors wide open. It's been blissful.

Taken on not such a sunny day, but you get the gist...?

There's a blackbird who's laid claim to our garden. He sits up in the neighbour's silver birch tree, singing his heart out. If you listen carefully, you can hear him singing '1,2,3 - Rapido!' (Anyone else remember the TV show? Or am I just showing my age?)

I've been able to watch the blue and great tits picking insects off the ivy, and have been lucky enough to see a pair of bullfinches - the male with his bright pink-red chest - and a thrush. The pigeons strut round the lawn like they own the place, and Timmy, our cat, crouches next to me and 'wa-ows' at them. Add the collared doves, which nest in the holly tree over the road from our house, who sit on the roof and coodle-coo for hours...

Most of the spring flowers are over and the summer ones not yet out, but the lilac tree, supposed to be a miniature but about 8 feet tall now, was full of flower and kept wafting its beautiful scent over me as I wrote, so heady and sweet. It's now going over, and my lawn is covered in purple petals.

Distancing myself from the house (and all the jobs I know are waiting there for me), being able to enjoy my garden while staying safe from the sun AND still being able to write - productively; I'm about 10K into a new novel - is wonderful. I consider myself very lucky.

Now all I need to do is find a CD player that works, and I can have music to write to, too. Although sometimes, Squidgeling T pops down, bags another bean bag and plays his guitar, so maybe I've already got what I need...