July 23rd – A somnambulant, headache-grey day followed a night during which a work call out had prevented me getting any sleep at all. I slipped out early in the afternoon to sunshine and showers from a shifting, occasionally azure blue, occasionally black sky,

I drifted up to Chasewater, and on the way took a look at the crops in Home Farm fields at Sandhills. Both the oilseed rape and wheat are near ripeness now and I bet as soon as the rain dries off, the harvesting will be game on.

And so the year and season advances a notch.