I'd been putting it off, Dragoslav Drca's recommendation that I have an updated blood test. Just as well he's a doctor who believes that patients also have responsibility for their health and someone of my age should care enough to follow through on doctors' instructions and if they don't, well, it's their responsibility that they've bypassed, not the doctor's. Last year I let that blood test prescription remain forgotten.

It looked as though I'd be doing the same this year. It's an inconvenience, I hate having to undergo such things. Not that I fear the needle and the extraction of blood, just that it interferes with the order of my life. But this morning, in the shower, my husband surprised me by informing me that this seemed like a perfect morning to go along to the local laboratory and get it done. So we did. Submitting to the extraction of fasting blood samples is one thing, lab instructions to urinate into a tiny container means you've got to discipline yourself to perform; an additional nuisance.

It hadn't yet begun raining. We're expecting a whopping 40 ml to fall today, and on top of the previous full-day successive rainfalls of the weekend, that amount of accumulation will still not compensate for the lack of spring and summer rain this year. Which means we'll still be under drought conditions. By the time we had breakfast and took ourselves out to the ravine the rain hadn't yet begun, but halfway through our walk it started. We came across only one other dog taking its companion for a walk; Lily, the white German shepherd whom Jackie and Jillie bound about in their delight to see her again.

The tree canopy keeps us all relatively dry as the rain begins in a desultory fashion, not yet in full monsoon mode, which we're expecting in a few hours' time. Back home afterward, I think it's a good idea to prepare something for dinner that will be complementary to the humid heat that suffocates the atmosphere. And blintzes it will be, stuffed with cheese, and a light summer salad to preface the blinis. Watermelon for dessert.