Humid.

Overnight it's rained heavily . This means that when the northern sun appears from behind the clouds it manages to be both hot and cloyingly humid. Northern sun - perhaps because it's so unexpected - has a ferocity all of its own. 

A dozen or hares are spotted as we walk down to the beach this morning. The larks seem to have moved on. There's no sign of the farmer. The heavy rain seems to have interrupted his schedule for harvesting the wheat. Puppy is being kept tied up on a long elastic rope in the farm garden. She has taken to following the combine harvester and her complete absence of fear brings her alarmingly close to the blades at the front. Until the wheat and barley are safely in she's grounded. This, as you can imagine, is not something she's happy about particularly as her more sensible elder sister is allowed to roam free.

The Japanese youngster who's here writing his PhD on corn buntings is nowhere to be seen. We can only assume he's headed back to Osaka for the summer. I guess everyone deserves needs a break from counting corn buntings. If he's reading this we can confirm that they're thriving.

The shopping street is humming.  With every AirBnB in town taken for the English holidays the Tesco and Sainsburys supermarkets are busy as soon as their doors open at seven. 

One of the village eighty five year olds , a retired professor of philology, has bought a new vehicle. We're rather surprised to see him draw up in a parking space beside us. He's traded in his sensible dark blue Vauxhall saloon for a rather jazzy Volkswagen electric van. It is, he informs us, easy to get in and out of. " The seats are just the right height and the views great " . He adds that he and his wife can make it over to Falkirk to see her sister  on a single charge . "Can you believe it's as smooth as a magic carpet with no noise at all and of course it has electric wing mirrors". We stand on the street and express what we hope is suitably enthusiastic approval of the new purchase. He seems as happy as Larry.

A very English piece of music on the BBC this morning :https://youtu.be/ckt1mAiq5Uo?t=13

Reflections on Spain:https://www.betonit.ai/p/reflections-from-spain

Measuring time :https://contemplationstation.substack.com/p/how-to-expand-time-the-neuroscience

Iceberg cartoons:https://steinbergdrawscartoons.substack.com/p/icebergs

Surely this is a crime ? :https://hypebeast.com/2025/7/liquid-death-x-fruity-pebbles-cereal-criminal-sparkling-water-release-info