the swifts have left behind my back, like they always do. the way it makes me smile on an early summer morning when i'm sitting inside and i strain to listen - was that high pitched faint streak across the sky one of my soaring icons? was it a car? no.. it was a bird... a blue or white sky streaked by the tinest black pixel - is perfectly echoed by the inaudible sigh i tend to release someday in august when it occurs to me i haven't noticed or heard them for days, and i hadn't noticed and they've gone. and it doesn't matter how many more summer days we have, no matter how many more beach days, somehow its not possibly summer at all any more now they've stopped whirling circling arching minutely outside the window of my eeyrie, cutting up my rectangles of blue sky with compass-perfect curves. i think the last time i saw them was before i left for the usa. it never occured to me to take a last look. and theres just no way any more to pretend that winter isn't coming, because the swifts have left.

the sky is turning slowly pinkish outside my window, a little nice touch to make up for the dreadfully heavy headachey clouds that have scummed up the day.
one month till london.
morning glories have been the heroes of summer days flowering every morning for months now with luminious glowing trumpets of deepest ultra violet and sky blue even when the sky is white. putting forth hundreds of new buds even now. grapes are hanging heavy now, bump gently into my head every time i walk over the veranda to water, making our house look strangely exotic. and its time to pick blackberries again. we've only just used up those from last year.