It’s been a good day.

Outside: patches of sun, slow-building clouds and pressure as the summer thunderstorms draw closer to my bit of the island.

Inside: friendly clients, manageable problems and an early finish. Like I said: a good day.

My work is over, now a walk so I can remember how to do it before I fuse up! Today it’s the supermarket.

Down my little paved close and past the big parking lot where about 12 gypsy caravans have pulled into a circle for their quarterly visit to our town. Short washing lines are strung between a few of them, pegged with bright items, and from inside the circle a man is singing soulful love-songs to a recorded backtrack.

Men from this temporary camp have been cleaning roofs and doing other jobs in the neighbourhood this week. COVID-19 means that the usually busy parking lot is empty, so no tension in the air from frustrated parkers eye-rolling as they mutter their way into the centre.

Through an open walkway to the village centre, past 3 outies on a bench yelling assorted imprecations at no-one in particular. One shouts: “You’re a RAT! Rats get stitches…” then he edits himself: “like SNITCHES!” The aged and glossy Jack Russell at his feet dozes through it all.

Heading home back down my little close I see banks and banks of brand new blackberries behind the fence on my left – they’re still blushing pink, but there’s a rich feast coming for the birds. I can still hear a faint edge of song coming from the crooning gypsy and I get inside a full five minutes before the skies release a hard warm rain.

It’s been a good day.