Things are changing

 

‘Important power cut information at 2.38am…’ As it was the middle of the night and I was asleep, I would not have known, but our electricity provider kindly sent me the text message at 2.45am in case I was worrying!

Of course, by the morning it was all fixed and I had another text to tell me that the engineers had isolated the problem and restored our service. Not that we use too much electricity in a warm summer, but I have noticed that we need our lighting on earlier. Not so long ago you could watch the 10 o’clock evening news and it was light outside but now our sun is setting before nine and our daylight today is three minutes shorter than yesterday. I was sitting in a café the other day and a woman on the next table said,

“We have a Shropshire saying that after the flower show in Shrewsbury it is autumn.”

I am still not ready to think about that yet, but I must think about the fact that I often put my mobile on the café table then pick it up to read whilst I am waiting. Apparently, this is where there are lots of thefts now. Mine opens on face recognition so I have always thought it was safe. But I have heard increasingly of thieves taking the phone after coming close. It is called ‘shoulder surfing’ where they watch you put in your pin or open with face recognition, then they grab your mobile and run.

Signs of the coming season are showing in our garden. I have been blackberry-picking and they are almost over now but the tomatoes are just beginning to ripen. We ate our first ones yesterday and I had almost forgotten the sharp sweet taste of home-grown tomatoes. We bought these plants called Ailsa Craig, but the un-named seedlings that our neighbour gave me are almost ready too. He grows his from his own tomato seeds and so the species is lost I time, but I bet they taste as good.

Another sign of the times is that we saw a hedgehog in the garden yesterday. We have not seen one here for years although they used to breed under our store shed and we fed the young, so they put on weight for the winter. This one was a fully grown adult and was eating our small apples that had fallen. It was a very hot day and I wonder if it wanted the juice, I covered it with a large dock leaf as it was in full sun. When I went back, it had gone to enjoy the rest of the summer.

(Taken from my column in the Shropshire Star)

Our tomatoes are ripening!