This is a good season for scone-lovers in England. Last Saturday I went to the village fete across the road for a 75-pence cream tea (ie, big cup of tea and two scones with Devon cream and strawberry jam), along with assorted jumble sales. (I got Michael Moore's Dude, Where's My Country for 25 pence and--oh, but I'm weak--a new plant for 10 pence. I was going to resist it--I know I'm bad with plants, I know better than to bring more into the house--but when the saleswoman saw me ogling it, she promptly dropped the price from 30 pence to 10, and I lost control.) This Saturday, there's a Summer Fayre down at the local Church of England down the road, advertising cheap cream teas, and next Saturday, the Unitarian church downtown is offering their own fair of rummage sales and cream teas. My stomach is leading me all over town this month!

The torrential rains are back, alas, and the newspaper this morning warned of a massive summer storm (sent from Spain, as the article pointed out with righteous outrage--that rascal country!) heading up North to us soon, bringing power outages and crashing trees. It all sounds exciting, at least. In the meantime, I spent Tuesday and Wednesday mornings writing the opening two scenes of a new short story, tentatively titled "Stargazing", and I wrote the ending this morning. Now I just need to write the middle section....