I look out of the window now and I see sparrows in the bottle brush tree at the side of the garden. That's not all that's in the tree. Bees and other insects are finding  a lot to interest them. Our puppies, enjoying the shade below the tree, gaze up in the hopes of catching the cat that dares to share their patch of the garden.

This photo of Shep was taken on the 20th of July. He's a lot bigger now and that cat'd better be careful!

Although it's a shady patch, the garden beds are as dry as bone. We haven't had rain for over 105 days and there's a need to conserve water. A large new water butt in another area of the garden stands empty. The last shower was in mid-June. Old timers here say that we can't expect any rain now, until December. The temperature in the shade of our verandah was 24 degrees C yesterday - not as bad as 30 about two weeks ago, and it's only just spring.

I'm working on pictures for my children's stories, the ones I'm going to put onto an eBook site. I'll let you know where as soon as my first story is ready. Several of my children's stories are still being used in schools in South Africa. I can't touch those for as long as the publishing houses hold the copyright.