Another lovely iffy day – sun, cloud, rain, sun. A friend is getting married today, and my house guests from Denmark told me it’s good luck there if it rains on a wedding day, it means prosperity. So my friends will be prosperous. But these are the best days of summer, I think, because we know how precious they are. This morning at the market, the farmer told me two more weeks for peaches, three at most. Do we dare to eat a peach or twelve? Damn right.

Exciting news: Volume 7 of my blog book. Millions of words in the sixteen years of these books. The printer, Ramy of Alexandria Printing, told me he thought they should be distributed and sold. Why? I said. It’s a blog, like a diary, no one wants to read that. Believe me, he said, I print a lot of books. The content is very good. People would be interested.

Very kind of you, Ramy, but I think not. I am doing this so there’s a record of these chronicles, but I cannot believe someone would ever want to buy and read the minutiae of my life.

It was funny, though, when my guests Trevor and Bente arrived, because Trevor reads my blog and has read my books, so he knows just about everything about my life, and I know almost nothing of his. That’s the way it is with writer/bloggers. He was my father’s Ph.D. student in the seventies, I met him once or twice, got in touch with him at a university in Denmark to ask questions about Dad’s biological research, and we became correspondents. Yesterday he and Bente, in Canada for a conference, came for lunch; she flew home and he’s staying here till Monday. Lovely people. Bicycle people.

I recently finished Sense and Sensibility, marvelling at Jane’s muscular prose and needle-sharp insight and wit, transcribed some favourite bits. Here’s an example: “Lady Middleton was equally pleased with Mrs. Dashwood. There was a kind of cold-hearted selfishness on both sides, which mutually attracted them; and they sympathized with each other in an insipid propriety of demeanor, and a general want of understanding.”

Insipid propriety of demeanor! Could it be better?

And another: “No poverty of any kind except of conversation appeared, but there, the deficiency was considerable. John Dashwood had not much to say for himself that was worth hearing, and his wife had still less.”

Go, Jane! Memories of Harriet Walter in the superb film, relishing the delicious role of the villainous Mrs. Dashwood. Two years ago, I read Middlemarch in August. I have resolved to read a great classic every August. Next year Remembrance of Things Past? Ulysses? Hmmm – let’s not get carried away.

Speaking of great prose – LOL! – no word yet on Midlife Solo, so I wait, in limbo. Walked today with Ruth, took this of my neighbour’s gorgeous front yard:

And these twin beauties are in my own garden, with their red lines like landing lights, guiding bees to the sweet spot:

Now it’s five, time for rosé. The orange blowhole, king of evil, destroyer of so much, has been mug-shotted. How I wish water would spray him and he’d dissolve, like the Wicked Witch of the West. A girl can dream.

Speaking of mugs, here’s one with a vital message:

Clouds again. Blessedly, unlike elsewhere in this country, nothing is on fire in Toronto except, perhaps, writers. Though not this one. Onward.