Wednesday 5 July 2023
It is 06:46 and sunny. Yesterday’s wash is already hanging outside in the sun. Washing done with a washing machine. We have a change in the water situation. We’ve gone from nothing going into our outdoor tank, not even a drip, on Sunday through to Monday night. Then, with assistance from Mitch and an industrial air pump, to the seeming unblocking of an airlock and a whoosh of water that resulted in a healthy trickle. Last night, however, the trickle had gone down to a drippy-trickle. I have yet to venture up to the tank this morning but my plan is to go to the spring as well. Mitch had thought there could be another airlock just from the fact of one being cleared and the spring water at the entrance to our pipe suddenly being clear to go down 450 metres or so of empty pipe. Anyway, I felt there was enough water in the tank to justify a clothing wash.
We have abandoned the wildlife cameras for a while. The one I had out and which I checked yesterday had taken almost six-thousand photos and videos, 99% of which were of grasses and leaves and branches blowing in the wind. The 1% were a few passing birds, the ears of a hare and me unscrewing the camera to turn it off.
The house is now chilly, even upstairs, and the midge-screened windows have been shut for the past week. I can’t believe how different the temperature is now compared to a few weeks ago in June when it was stiflingly hot upstairs. I’ve got up and had a few mornings feeling cold in the bathroom, reminded how different a bathroom experience it was in winter, ie bitterly cold.
As well as the resident pheasant family, we have a new member of the community. For the past fortnight or so, there has been a heron guarding our stretch of river. Chris, Angela and I all saw it a few metres from the house, standing tall and looking herony-pterodactyly magnificent. It has just flown past the window. In Lewisham, believe it or not, there are far more herons. My friend Rachael has declared that it’s a lucky day to see a heron. I have readily adopted that mindset and feel particularly pleased to have seen him so early in the day.
Angela drove back down to Kent yesterday (roughly 10:30 to 18:30 with a lunch break). I got a lift with her three miles or so down the road and had a good walk back home. I hadn’t walked that bit of the road for maybe two months and it was interesting to see how much it’s changed with the emergence of all things summery, though also the swathes of sitka spruce which have been cut down. As I seem to increasingly do out here, I chatted out loud to myself and had music playing out of my phone, though very quietly.
Despite the sun, the temperature around here is only just rising above 6°C, with a high later of 14°C. In Lewisham, the range is forecast between 12°C and 20°C.
Other than desk-based work today, I will go up to the spring, measure the height of water in the water tank (62 cm yesterday morning when the flow was better, 65cm twelve hours later when it was more drippy-trickly) and possibly do something in the garden.
