It's a dog-eared, much-read and valued paperback entrusted temporarily to my care until such time as I read it and handed it back to its owner; Terry Pratchett's 'Small Gods'. It's taken me a while to get around to reading it, since most of my reading material is non-fiction. But I thought I needed a rest from some of the cerebrally-weighty stuff I'd been reading, and 'Small Gods' it was. It doesn't belong to our granddaughter, a passionate lover of novels, since a book in that condition would never be permitted to share space with the pristine collection she adores.

Her two uncles, our sons, collected all of the Pratchett books just as when they were much younger it was the Monty Python group they followed and acclaimed. The book is light reading on the surface, but it has a deeper, darker message delivered with canny wit and a deep observation of human nature. It's the kind of mind that could write such a book, hilarious and sober at the same time, you'd enjoy being in close company with.

Irving, for his part, has been reviewing our library choices of Russian writers, most of which he's already read. Our reading material choices sometimes match and make our moods, and there are times when whatever he's reading I tell myself that's the next one for me. For the most part, this is the kind of reading we do before bedtime, in bed, and sometimes we read for at least an hour, sometimes we doze off in the throes of a reading stint.

This morning Jackie and Jillie were aware they were in for a special treat post-breakfast, sharing ours. Saturday and Sunday breakfasts are special for them. Their keen sense of smell informs them of the menu and they become excited, chasing one another around the house in eager anticipation. Irving thought it would be a good start to the day for us to have waffles again, so waffles it was. It's such a basic formula with so few ingredients. After our oranges and bananas to begin the day following the long fast from last night's meal.

After breakfast he went out to the front lawn to once again scatter soil, fertilizer and seed in yet another attempt to coax the grass to behave itself. We came out to visit with him from time to time, me taking a break from my house-interior preoccupations. Until finally all was done and Jackie and Jillie triumphantly led us over to the ravine for our daily afternoon ramble on the forest trails.

A warmish day, close with humidity and heavily overcast. Ramble was what we did, taking our time through the  trails, chatting with one another, pointing out new arrivals and departures. Lilies-of-the-valley are fading, joining the trilliums and jack-in-the-pulpits, while daisies, buttercups, fleabane and clover are in bright bloom. We saw only one thimbleberry blooming yesterday, and now there are many. The newly-discovered yellow-flag iris beckoned us on our way to the second bridge over the creek.

Before we knew it, our circuit for the day was completed and we were heading back up the hill to street level, then home again, to peruse the gardens and linger awhile to admire the bright, sunny faces of all the glorious flowering plants we've welcomed to share summer with us.