#SundayScribble, 06.08.2023

My coffee tastes like espresso this morning – the first cup of a whole potful that I grabbed to get back upstairs with it so as not to have to talk to anyone quite yet.

The valley is socked in with smoke still, the rising sun a blood-red ball over the hazy hillside. But there is no smell of smoke that I can detect; maybe my nose has become inured to it. The doves are cooing, there is chirping and whistling and shrieking, and the odd chattering noises of what I think is the quails interru...