We appear now, having turned the corner into August, to have reached a point of moderation; less heat, less rain, more humidity, lots of sun. Everything that had shrivelled when we were flirting with drought has been resuscitated, but for the forest and garden vegetation that succumbed completely, and there was plenty of that in the former, less in the latter.

We've reached a reasonable balance in the weather, which is nice, but anyone living in this area that thinks this will continue is living in fantasy land. No complaints about yesterday, though. We had a balmy breeze, a high of 27C which is a far cry from 34C which we were treated to not that long ago, day after day, and though there was a cloud cover, plenty of glare from the sun.

And it was much, much after we'd returned from our ravine walk in the woods with Jackie and Jillie and I'd gone out to the garden to do a little tidying up that the skies opened up and treated everything to a brief rain event.

On the edges of the forest, the sunflowers are still flaunting their stately beauty, and they've been joined by fall asters; not very many yet, but soon they'll be flourishing in shades of vanilla, mauve, purple and the most lovely of all, pink, in a wide variety of sizes, alongside the goldenrod. After I'd taken a photograph of the earliest of the asters I realized they like our gardens, were infested with Japanese beetles, whose predation will make short shrift of the asters' blooming cycle.

Later in the evening, it was really pleasant outside, a nice cool breeze and a partially clear sky convincing our older son to set up one of his telescopes on the deck outside the breakfast room. He showed me Mars and Saturn, and I was quite excited to see for the first time the rings around that gaseous giant.