It's 07.50 of a Saturday morning. One of Megan's cats, Cookie, is staring at me earnestly, as if to say "Look, it's ten minutes to breakfast time, why not do all of us a favour and dish it up now? We'll not mention anything to Megan." To be fair, she'll do this at any time from five minutes after her twice daily feeds. Her sister, Mocha, is dozing on the back of the sofa, seemingly unconscious to the world, but she will unfurl and show a sprightly side to her nature when the first sound of spoon on dish is heard. We are settling into a new routine here at Burnbank, and I realise that I haven't brought you an update on the progress of the guest room. We are quietly pleased with our attempt at co-ordinating soft furnishings, although the room needs a bit more art on the walls. Outside, and I'm sure you don't need telling what this piece of artistry is? A Red Admiral butterfly soaking up the heat shortly after dawn Hang on whilst I feed the cats..
The recent warm spell did eventually make it as far north as Orkney and Shetland, and we enjoyed several days of temperatures over 20 degrees Celsius. It was very strange! Fin ally, however, and following the laws and strictures which govern such things, the weather broke one night with a mighty thunderstorm, freshening the air so that the landscape as well as its inhabitants gave a collective sigh of relief. At the time, I was minded of a Rush lyric from the song 'Marathon' which featured on their 1985 'Power Windows' album: "Like a streak of lightning, that flashes and fades in the Summer sky." With the cosmic inevitability of an earworm and a waterproof Bluetooth speaker, at the end of the next working day I found myself in the shower listening to a couple of tracks from the album, though even bathroom acoustics couldn't help my singing. The track before 'Marathon' is ' Manhattan Project ', a topic which I guess is currently back in the