{"id":968,"date":"2026-08-31T15:58:43","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T14:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/?p=968"},"modified":"2026-08-31T15:58:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T14:58:43","slug":"august-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/?p=968","title":{"rendered":"August 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming\u2026 suddenly you find – at the age of 50, say – that a whole new life has opened before you <\/em>~Agatha Christie<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First load of potatoes that I grew under the careful gaze this year, but I’m planting them in tubs and filling my front garden with them, so I know exactly when they need watering and saving from drowning.. So many colours everywhere! Barges, flowers, even litter bins and graffiti, urban decay\u2019s half life has some defining qualities. We had an eclipse and I tried to photograph it but made for an interesting sunset – the housing estate where I live shielded it from view but for the first 20 minutes, a colander sufficed! Opposite the Great Central bowling alley is a new block of flats which have built-in nest bricks and a telltale line of guano, like the ledge of the Baltic Mills in Newcastle. Considering they spend most of their time flying, evacuation mode must be like taking your wellies off before you come indoors. I\u2019ve seen Mum twice this month and treated her to my favourite Fish restaurant in Ongar, as well as some home cooked fish in some nice new saucepans –\u00a0 I binned the cheap ones for some which are free from forever chemicals. It’s nice to have something to make restaurant quality Sea Bass with crispy skin. Sapori restaurant in Anstey is a good recommendation this month, it\u2019s Michelin recommended but not starred. Italian modern cuisine and a delight to treat my wife and nibling to dinner. Our local nature reserve – a lake given as part of the roundabout improvement works some years back, is an 800 step loop. Recently I reported young lads coming in with their bikes to the lake and destroying much of the habitat and making a den from rotting wildlife logs. When they left their litter behind, I reported it and subsequently we now have a bicycle free lake with gates at either entrance.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming\u2026 suddenly you find – at the age of 50, say – that a whole new life has opened before you ~Agatha Christie First load of potatoes that I grew under the careful gaze this year, but I’m planting them in tubs and filling my front garden with them, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1003,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions\/1003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}