June 2026 Pages
life and death in our back garden
June has been a tale of two parts for me: before the heatwave and after the heatwave. Â
Here are my June sketchbook pages:
1
If you added up all the 10 minutes here and 5 minutes there, you’d discover that I spend a decent chunk of each day staring into either the pond or the baby bath that the tadpoles are in (so that the pond newts don’t eat them). I’ve even discovered that I can watch the tadpoles from my bedroom if I look through binoculars. And on the 2nd of June I was staring into the baby bath and there was a frantic slightly-creepy looking creature zipping about anxiously. I had a feeling it was trying to find a route out so I fetched some reeds from the pond and taped them onto the edge of the baby bath. Within a minute it had started to crawl up the reeds and in the next hour and a half I was lucky enough to witness the metamorphosis of nymph into damselfly. It was such an intimate and extraordinary thing to watch. I was deeply moved. The thing climbed out it’s own skin right in front of my eyes. And then, in a bizarre but lovely ending, it’s first flight was onto my forefinger. Incredible.
2 – 4
Arsenal won the league and Ross was so thrilled (22 years of waiting, apparently) that he booked us a weekend away in a narrowboat in a field with a sea view and a hot tub. See more here.
There were swallows swooping all around, a fat pheasant, and a gorgeous peaceful hare who lollopped about the field all day long. Ross even saw a barn owl from the hot tub.
5Â
We took a boat trip round the Farne Islands to see the oodles and oodles of guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and puffins that nest there. It was windy and a bit smelly and wonderful.
6 and 7
Coming home from two nights away to see the patio snails and the tadpoles and the damselfies and the studio swallow sitting quietly in her nest is such a sweet thing. I think the house sparrows fledged while we were gone – the incessant demanding cheeping has ceased. The parents seem to upgrading the nest ready to go again. I’m obsessed with the garden in June – I haven’t been round the woods at all this month, there’s too much to see in my back garden. This is a Painted Lady butterfly and a Lunar Thorn Moth, both June garden lovelies.
8
This is Daisy, our garden baby bunny, who seems to have taken up residence under the new studio building and isn’t afraid of us at all. She lets the kids get really close to her. She’s so unbelievably cute that I don’t mind a bit if she nibbles my seedlings. I’ve been painting the interior wood work in the new studio and so I am up the back of the garden a lot and I love seeing her hop by the window, and the movement of the swallows in and out the porch. Â
9 – 10
Heatwave
Another one.
All the swallow chicks died. All 5 of them. I think they were about 10 days old. The skies above Drygrange are empty of swallows. I feel the absence like a heavy weight in my chest. I’ll write more about it sometime, not today, I’m too sad. Let’s see what July brings.
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