All Change - hopefully for the better?

What a crazy year!  Not just the horrible pandemic and long months of isolation, but what is going on 'out there'. While I read of beautiful, sunny and warm/hot days in other parts of England, here in my little bit of Cornwall there are high winds and torrential rain.  Each morning I spend an anxious time peering at the roof for misplaced tiles, having lain awake listening to worrying clatters and bangs during the night. Even in other parts of Cornwall, people are posting photos of golden sands, blue, blue sea and wall to wall sunshine.  

In my garden, I discovered blackberries ripe for the picking during the first week of August.  My greenhouse tomatoes grew high and wide (I had to trim the plants in order to get close) but took an age to produce actual fruit. Then the sun disappeared and all those tomatoes remain green. I tell a lie - I've picked a total of 6 small red ones which I ate in the greenhouse! Green chutney anyone? 

Has Summer ended, then? I think I missed it as I haven't seen one swallow this year: the starlings which squabble and gobble all the birdseed and fat balls never materialised at all and much as I dislike their greed and bullying ways around the smaller birds, I have missed them, especially the evening clamour when they descend to roost in the tall ash tree in my neighbour's garden. 

It's All Change, isn't it?  Changes galore in our way of life: in the way we work; in the out of sync seasons; in the habits of birds and animals and in our relationships when there are no hugs and kisses for or from our loved ones and dear friends.  

But there we are, we can only sit back and watch and wait to see how it will all pan out. Simply try to make the best of it and cope as best we can.  By the way, nothing much changes with Benji - it was he who discovered the first blackberries. I saw him going around the edge of the patio, pushing under the surrounding greenery, loudly sniffing and snuffling as he went. Then I realised he was eating, so called him away. Of course he took not one iota of notice so I went and grabbed him, pulled him out and away so that I could see what was in his mouth. It was a shock to see that the fur around his mouth was blue! Oh no! My first horrified thought was that he'd found and eaten Deadly Nightshade - such a relief to find that there were blackberries on a particularly strong, thick bramble stem that had encroached from the neighbouring garden and that's what Benji was enjoying. (I did a thorough check for Deadly Nightshade afterwards and there's none in my garden.) But goodness knows how many blackberries my boy had eaten but once again, his strange diet has had absolutely no effect on him! For days afterwards he checked that area for more treats but without success.  Little does he know that higher up there were more blackberries which I picked and enjoyed with a Greek Yoghurt topping!  He got the yoghurt pot to lick clean as always.