First Cuckoo

Friday brought those harbingers of summer, the first cuckoo, the first ram raid getaway vehicle, and the first braai. The ram raider tore up the field in the small hours, aiming to elude any pursuit, although in the event there wasn't one - presumably because a sole attending squad car had to decide between chasing the raiders or minding the un-emptied cash-machine they had left sitting on the pavement. Saturday, Sunday and Monday brought more braais, and we are now being molested by sausages and foil-wrapped fish in our sleep. Brother Tobias threw himself into the spirit of things with a heat-induced thirst and his new red wrap-around mirror shades from Lidls, waking amnesically in a beery, garlic-flavoured pool of drool for another day of recalling and regretting the previous night's witty remarks.

Saturday saw a mass breakout by the crossbred sheep in the field behind. The owner was otherwise occupied, so the Social Secretary and I rounded them up and persuaded them to jump, one by one, back through a hole in the fence, before repairing it with bailer twine. Sunday brought the first wasp and an outbreak of ants in the kitchen. By Monday the new generation of quad bikes had hatched, and were tearing noisily up and down the hill in their flashy display ritual.

It looks like another hot day today, and I see the farmer is out already doing something with a sheep. Everywhere sap is rising; the first tendrils of the tardy ash uncurl aloft, burgeoning foliage luxuriously burgeons above the broad sward, the blossomed pear tree leans to the field, etc etc.