Dear Readers, it’s edging up towards 80 degrees Fahrenheit today (a mere 26 degrees Celsius) but blimey it feels warm here in London. I am decidedly sleepy, and every time I try to do something intelligent my brain stops working, so here I am spending 15 minutes posting a few photos and trying to get my neurons to cooperate.

First up , a few shots of the pollinators visiting my buddleia. I can sit at my office desk and shoot these little sweethearts through the closed window, which is just about as much energy as I can muster today.

And then it’s out to the garden where it’s a bit cooler.

There was a family of wrens, the parents clicking and the babies squealing. I saw one adult feeding a fledgling with a nice fat insect, but they were most uncooperative on the photography front. Here is my one and only photo of a wren’s bum.

Then a comma butterfly happened along…

And then a very pretty brimstone moth appeared. I love these moths, they’re every bit as yellow as their butterfly namesakes. And look at those stripey yellow legs! It reminds me of Malvolio in Twelfth Night (English graduate here folks), when he was asked to appear with yellow-stockings and cross-gartered. ‘The Malvolio Moth’ – what a shame the creature is already named.

The caterpillar is fond of rowan (tick), hawthorn (double-tick) and Amelanchior (two street trees outside) so maybe we’re doing something right.

And finally, can anyone guess what on earth this is?

This strange little floating galaxy is a new spider’s web that has turned up in the shed, and just happened to be catching the light. Thirty seconds after I took this photo, the sun had moved, and the moment had passed.

So Readers, especially those of you in the south of England, batten down the hatches, make sure you drink lots of water, slap on the Factor 50 and make sure your fans are in working order. According to the weather forecast it’s not going to drop below 80 for about a fortnight. My dad would have loved it, but my mum hated the hot weather, and I seem to find myself somewhere in the middle. I have a shedload of work to do next week as well, but at least I’m not having to commute, so as always I’m grateful for both large and small mercies.