Summer Solstice

I didn't think we'd be able to celebrate the Solstice out of doors yesterday. The weather forecast was for yet more of this rain that we've had for a while - but we were lucky. Towards evening the heavy clouds thinned out and left us with a fine but breezy sky so we (all four of us!) went up the hill to the allotment carrying candles, fleeces and very importantly, beer!

The way I've spent most summer solstices in the past is in my garden at home, where I light candles as the sky begins to fade and while I'm waiting for the first star to appear in the sky I think about the year we've had. I remember the people I used to know who've gone from this planet and I turn my spirit outwards to all the people I love in the hope that there is some power in the human mind that can touch them even when I'm not with them. It's a very special time of year for me and although I've done the sunrise at Avebury thing with all the druids and the drumming, I find the solitude of the evening at midsummer in my own garden a more conducive channel for my energy. So that's what I did yesterday too, just me, well, me and my cat. My cat always comes into the circle of candles and sits with me. I'm sure it helps.

But before that, J and the boys helped to erect what is possibly the world's smallest and most recent standing stone next to the pond on the allotment! We'd found it some months previously under some brambles when we moved the compost bins at the bottom of the allotment and it was just the right shape for a teeny little monolith so I decided that midsummer day was an auspicious day to put it in place.

The hole was dug, the stone placed facing the sun as it sank behind the hill and we placed seven candles around it to celebrate the Solstice. Then we all drank beer. The boys showed signs of having humoured mummy enough so before they left I took them along to the end of the allotments where there is a wild area of large trees and bushes in which a fox has been seen with one cub this year. We crept as quietly as we could into the wild area but weren't lucky enough to see the foxes this time. I've seen adult foxes many times on the allotment but I'd love to see the cub.

The photos this time are of our new standing stone (!) and a pile of our broad beans on the kitchen table. I am immensely pleased with the beans this year, we won't get masses but since I planted them quite late because of squirrel damage to my first batch, they've done really well.
They taste good too. Now, mysteriously I seem to be typing when I could be weeding so it's time for me to go....

.....and a merry Solstice to you all!