Summer

June is ripe and we've moved past the flush of summer into the golden days. By which I guess I mean that notwithstanding the muscular hogweed, all of the spring flowers have been and gone and what remains are flush green leaves and withered buds and the satanic knots of juvenile thistles like black metal band logos. I regret not taking any pictures of them.The ground is baked hard and the cars driving back and forth to the fishing pond kick up great clouds of dust. Fickle summer showers don't make much of a dent in the plate armour of the little trods round the field at the end of Moor Lane, but they do soak the clover and the grass and consequently my feet. Ghyll seems listless in the sunshine.I learned what a "mackerel sky" is the other day, and then Ghyll and I saw one basically right away. Apparently they're harbingers of weather change? True to the lore, when I let Ghyll out for a wee right before bed, I found the paving in the backyard wet and muggy and warm, and I was…