Hot, dry, dusty and the air is full of pollen. Sneezes galore.

Discovered that there’s a blackbird building a nest in the jasmine vines on the fence outside our bedroom window. In a way this is kind of cool, wild-life in the suburbs, etc. Just such a pity it has to be feral blackbirds, rather than the vanishingly small number of native birds we see around the area. It might explain all the blackbird noises we keep hearing around dawn though!

I was so tempted to do nothing all day, Jo decided we should go for some kind of a bike ride in the afternoon. It ended up being a gentle meander in along the Gardiners creek trail to Richmond, up around the river to Abbotsford, then back down into Richmond for a beer and then a pizza.

So hot and dry, on the way in it felt like mid-summer, not at all like early November! Silvio’s pizza was as good as always, a garlic bread, a Silvio’s special, a carafe of red wine, all delivered blindingly fast, all simple, good, tasty food. The menus have been reprinted, but nothing much has changed, they look the same as the last lot, but the prices have gone up a tiny amount and the amusing spelling “Sylvos” has been corrected to “Silvios” .

Riding home as dusk was falling, the bugs were out in force along the creeks. We rode with eyes half shut, each swarm of midges causing much blinking, cursing and spitting. Temperatures were high enough that the cicadas were singing in the trees, again it felt like late summer.