The long road south

Not so long, at least this first day's drive, south through England - certainly not by US standards of long drive, and even within the UK, not quite as long as the drive to Thurso on the north coast, nor as long as it could have been if we'd been driving west as well as south. Long enough, though, especially against the clock with a ferry to catch, and although there are more long drives ahead, this is the one I'm glad to have behind us.

Evidently, while I've been spending too long at my desk and not paying attention to the world outside, the crops have ripened, and the fields have gone from green to gold. Today's best Photograph Not Taken was a field of blonde wheat, divided into dark and light by the straight edge of a cloud shadow. The deep cut of a path formed a cross with the terminator line, and a single tree - low, massive, green - stood just off the intersection of the two.

Other Photos Not Taken, this being an English summer, were mostly of clouds: a mass of charcoal grey edged with silver dropping a veil of rain over the North York Moors; a sky almost completely covered by white curds, with a chink of brilliant blue across which there trailed a swathe of dappled lace; a strip of gleaming white cloud and chalk white cliffs sandwiched between slate grey cloud and jade green sea...

And now we are in Dunkerque, where it has evidently been raining, and since French time is an hour ahead of the UK, it's time for bed.