the blood moon

At 5:30 am I open the patio door and it is almost cool outside, the butterflies are feeding on the buddleia and the sweet william. I kneel in front of the blueberry bush and pick today's harvest, the young blackbirds are flying in and out of the vines, dropping grapes and generally making lots of noise. The rainwater tanks are empty, there are brown patches all over lawn and last night, like every night just after sunset, I pointed the hose to the roots of a thirsty plant and counted to 50 before moving on to the next plant. R put a black mesh cover over the greenhouse.
I make tea and set the table for breakfast outside. We are grumpy, relearning how to sleep on hot nights. I eventually pushed a mattress below the wide open windows of the front room some time after 2 am and fell into a deep sleep with a faint breeze washing over me. R stayed in the cool basement, dark concrete, surrounded by tool boxes and a faint smell of motor oil and white spirit.
So far, the house is pleasantly cool, so far, it's all a matter of when to close up and let down the blinds, opening up at night and readjusting your pace. The solar panels on the roof are providing all the energy we need and much more right now, we'll be rich, R tells me after reading the meters for the feed-in to the grid. I stop switching off the fans.
Over breakfast we talk about sleeping outside tonight, thinking about the insects and the cats and how to fix the mosquito net and we know it's just too much hassle.
There are fat peaches ripening, purple plums, apples, pears, figs.
Pinto beans, runner beans, beetroot, radish, tiny carrots, tomatoes and peppers, courgettes to feed the world, pumpkins as big as footballs.
On the radio a government minister talks about asylum tourism, in Austria, an elected politician wants Jews to be registered and in Italy, the first Roma camp sites are raided at dawn.
My sick cert is extended for another two weeks, my GP sighs when I tell her that I work from home.
She looks exhausted, too.
After dinner we make our way down to the river, R sets up the tripod right on the water's edge.
I open my flask of milky tea and listen to the conversations around me, children run with dogs and when the waves from a a large passing cargo barge wash too close, there is a lot of running and laughing.
It is dark and still very hot, sweat is running down my back.
At first we don't see her, so faint, almost grey but once our eyes adjust, there she is, massive, round, red, la luna, the moon.