Driving back from Merignac airport one darkish evening I was rather tired and cross – anyone would be who had just fought their way through Gatwick South to a plane. Fortunately the rocade is not the bumper to bump jam in the evenings as it is in the daytime. ...
June was a wonderful month, even allowing for the excessive heat. In fact it was hot enough to wash Gregory Bear, much loved successor to Artur van Gelderen. Now in the Bethnal Green childhood museum – somewhere. And, gosh, was Gregory dirty! Gregory...
The orchids started this summer at La Chaise with a most odd behaviour. Usually they are in small clumps of two or three plants. One extreme exception was the spread of the early purples under the ash trees – from a distance they looked like a rash of clover. ...
For the past couple of months we have woken to the glorious sounds of frogs revelling in the Black Pond in the woods. In the evening the sound is always as great. We have missed them for a year or so and wondered why. There were flies enough, strange things...
The La Chaise chicken house is worthy of a picture postcard. It is not very high, roof tree about two metres from the ground level, wide roofs slope down to thick walls way less than a metre high. There is a skylight in the flat mechanical terracotta roof tiles... 
