I was weeding as the light was fading and became aware of a continuous buzzing noise. The great lime tree next door, covered in blossom, was almost shivering with bees. You could hear the humming right across the garden.
Swifts were screaming over and round the house and I could hear the nesting martins burbling away under the eaves. A second nest has been inhabited late in the season and is full of young. We are not the only ones enjoying the hot weather. Mind you, I had to rescue some very limp lettuce earlier today.
Green Writing Room 
Ah, the sound of summer. Here it is mid-winter but during the day it is lovely and sunny. Soon our mag pie couple will start nesting high up the Mandarin pear tree.
The martins have now gone crazy and are inhabiting, and I think breeding, in yet another nest. We have never, in over thirty years, known them to start so late.