online: 19 june 2005

18 june 2005 warm weather


20:54 Seat overlooking Viaduct pond. Second day of a minor heatwave, 28-30C in the shade and high humidity, but now the air is a little cooler and i can walk without sweating. The sky is cloudless and palest blue - a sign i think of the smog we can expect in the next two days for which this warm air is expected to continue. The wind is from the south or southeast which may add smog from the Rhur to that generated in London.

I guess there are hundreds of young people here this evening, all in their 20s or 30s and sitting in groups all over the open spaces. The ones with small children were leaving when i arrived.

A large fish, perhaps a pike, has just jumped in the middle of the pond. A persistent mosquito is trying to take some of my blood. The wind which has i think been blowing all day is now ceased and the trees are so still they seem like sculptures. Yes i'm much attracted by stillness...

As i walked here along level pathways beneath trees and through open spaces i felt each tree and each leaf and each person (and every other thing visible) to be part of a connected miracle, an indescribable whole, that becomes more and more evident to me as i grow physically weaker but perceptually more attentive to everything. Is this the gift of old age? I suppose yes but just now in half-conscious annoyance i squashed the mosquito. So that is also part of the picture.

Now another mosquito tries to penetrate the skin of my thumb and i blow it away but yet another attacks my face and neck and i move to get free this distraction.



Parliament Hill. I see that the distant part of the city is already hidden in smog. The predicted two or three more days of this will be difficult for the many (including me) whose lungs do not operate well in smoggy air. I consider leaving London until the west wind returns.


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