Thursday 8 July

~ Out last night, so a  little grouchy and hungover first thing, but then the very young temporary posty stops at the gate and takes a slim Amazon package from the back of the van.  White Egrets, already, that was quick.  Anticipation sweetens the morning; I put it aside but go about my tasks with fresh energy and the thought of an afternoon's reading in the garden ahead.  Suddenly, so many things seem rich with possibility: the cluster of reddening cherry tomatoes on the plant by the front wall, the brown thrush which flutters out of the bank behind me and flies off into the oaks, then its tentative song from the trees, even my old dirty white plimsolls wedged into the window frame to keep it open for the paint to dry, or the sensual and and satisfying accuracy of the expression 'a lick of paint'...

~  Later, I weed the pond, pulling out many of the waterlily leaves smothering the surface, and some of the floating oxygenating weed too.  The water level is parlously low, it is warm and smells rank and oozy, and the slabs around it are almost unbearably hot to hands and knees.  I put the hose into it and top it up, an extravagance, but the goldfish, pink-veined white, scarlet and truly gold, come to the surface to thank me, gulping at the air with O-shaped mouths.

~  I didn't pull out any flowering water-lilies,

they are, I think the most shameless vain tarts of flowers, hardly ever take a bad picture.  It must be because they live permanently with their own reflections that they think so well of themselves.  I keep meaning to go into the park in St Brieuc with the camera, where I've noticed they have lemon yellow ones.