Happy Solstice

How did you spend the extra few minutes of daylight today? (Apologies to any readers from the southern hemisphere.)

This evening, I took the time and planted a few lines of salad seeds. Seemed a suitable occupation to do on the Summer Solstice, somehow.

 And the extra few minutes in the morning? Well that was spent settling our first Solstice visitor of the day.

Yes, another baby bat. Just like last year. On the day with the most daylight, I started the day looking after a precious nocturnal animal. Throughout the day, I found myself almost wishing the daylight hours gone, so that I could try and reunite the baby with it’s mother. (No luck unfortunately.)

The children welcomed our visitor. This evening, we stood outside and watched the rest of the bats flying around the house, hoovering up the biting flies. We watched a little owl sit up top of our telephone pole. The candlemas earth candles were taken outside and lit. The smell of beeswax wafted mixed with the first of the honeysuckle. It was a lovely evening.

Ah well. Always something to challenge us.

Happy Solstice!