Dear Readers, how can it be June already? I used to laugh at my poor old Mum when she said that the days go more quickly as you get older, but she was absolutely right. Sorry Mum. But now that it’s June, why do I still have the heating on, albeit occasionally, and why am I still wearing my bedsocks? The time is out of joint, for sure.

I am about two-thirds of the way through my revision, and have just whooshed through my block on the carbon cycle. There’s a module on geoengineering – goodness, all the wacky ideas that people have had, from seeding the oceans to artificial trees to sticking a reflector up at Lagrange Point 1 to catch some of the solar radiation. We could definitely plant more trees, but on the other hand I rather think we should try to preserve the venerable giants that we have.

Just a few more days and I’ll be done, and the rest of the summer will spread out before me (though I do notice that June is looking particularly busy, what with all the friends I haven’t met for a few weeks and the East Finchley Festival (where Friends of Coldfall Wood (aka me and five other devoted wood-lovers) will be raffling off a couple of mini-meadows with any luck)). There are rather too many nested brackets in that sentence, but tbh my head is too full of the history of OPEC and the sustainable  endeavours of the community of Eigg to sort it out at the moment.

Anyhow, here’s something for a little peace and harmony, and also for my dear friend A, who suffered a loss this week. I know that she loves Edward Thomas, as do I, so here is Adlestrop. Can’t you just feel the quiet of the train station, the heat of the day, and the hear the birds singing?

Adlestrop, by Edward Thomas

Yes, I remember Adlestrop —
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop — only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.