Midsummer at the summerhouse: 29C and a hosepipe ban. Small planes scan the plots for too-green grass. Water use is monitored. Drooping trees perk up with occasional light rain. The two-month no-mow meadow is alive with daisies, poppies, cornflowers, every kind of grasshead. I walk around with the Pl@ntNet app. I am near-addicted to the bird-identifier Merlin, turned to Sound ID, making sense of the chorus.
I cycle past the looping peewits, scan for the flickering skylarks, watch, entranced by the skimming martins living in the sand cliffs along the beach.
