June is doing its best to blaze

I think the Fates – if there are such things – are trying to have pity on us this month and giving us something well worth looking at, because they know how bleak and difficult our lives have recently become.

So here are a few photographs we’ve taken in the garden today and a lovely poem by W H Davies, who is a great favourite of mine and has put into words how pleasurable it is to find ourselves in the middle of Summer.

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All in June

A week ago I had a fire
To warm my feet, my hands and face;
Cold winds, that never make a friend,
Crept in and out of every place.

Today the fields are rich in grass,
And buttercups in thousands grow;
I’ll show the world where I have been—
With gold-dust seen on either shoe.

Till to my garden back I come,
Where bumble-bees for hours and hours
Sit on their soft, fat, velvet bums,
To wriggle out of hollow flowers.

W H Davies

So let’s drink to the summer and be glad!