Of solstice and geese.

Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, when night is chased back to its furthest point by the fiery ball in the Heavens lighting the way, bringing heat and encouraging growth and ripening.

Or not.

It has rained almost constantly all through the day. Sunrise was hidden from us not merely due to rising on the far side of the mountain behind our house but due to the endless cloud cover that never broke.

Midday was dark, drear and drenched.

Sunset was merely the fading down from grey to a shade of mid blue to deep blue to black.

If you had sun in your area, I am glad. I hope you welcomed its heat and light as it warmed you and met its promise given in the depths of last Winter that it would indeed return.

Tomorrow I have the job of packing 13 off not only to school but to respite afterwards.

I shall pack her clothes bag, put together her toiletries and medicines and send them with her on her bus to school. The driver from respite will collect her from school at the end of the day and take her there. Or perhaps even out for a little drive. Last time she went to a nearby lake and came home with pictures of herself and one of the helpers admiring goslings.

I suppose goslings are not as threatening as fully grown Canada and Greylag geese which gave her quite a start when we were surrounded by them at Caerphilly Castle.

Yes, merely a snap, I had a kid who really was keen to move on from the spot, especially when one of the geese seemed to be coming right towards her.

© 2012, Penbleth / L. McG.-E.. All rights reserved.