Back to work (haha) with quite a lot of time spent catching up with all the many things I didn't keep up with in Ireland. And then all over again after a week in London. Decidedly a good month, with some splendid warm, bright, blue-sky days.

After the heat of August, a totally cool month in more ways than one. Way up north in Northern Ireland staying in a lovely, warm and comfortable house about 100 metres from a huge great strand. People said, what for? Because we could, and it turned out to be a much better time that passed much more rapidly than I could ever have imagined.

Phew! What a scorcher! Seriously, August was hotter for longer than I can remember. Almost impossible to go for a walk at any reasonable hour, and although I managed a few early morning rides, they got pretty hot pretty fast too.

Very late, which is entirely understandable as I have very little of substance to report. We were away for almost the entire month having fun and relaxing, as it should be.

Whoop-de-doo; Independence Day in the USA and, as one wag put it, “Enjoy! It may be your last”. I fear I have succumbed to a bit of doom and gloom this past month, what with entirely fatuous politics in so many places and continuing incontrovertible evidence that climate change probably is completely out of control now.