Just got startled by the most amazing rustling sound from outside; it was Plane tree leaves, blowing down the road. I guess the dry spell already has them shrivelling and shedding. Roll on the thunderstorms. One was promising last night, but never materialised, and I just slumped there, feeling hotter and more horrid, watching episodes of One Piece and cringing at the Hamiltons' football song and Jeremy Clarkson looking a bit slow on last week's Have I got news for you. I probably should have watched the Cow woman documentary afterwards instead, but I had Five Disasters Waiting to Happen all cued up and waiting. Looking at those four grim dolphins of the eco-apocalypse, heat, storms, rain and rising sea levels, taking on London, Paris, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Tuvalu*. What struck me was that though the climatologists comcerned were very different in some ways, they all (even the rabidly upbeat one overseeing Shaghai's flood management) had a similar demeanor; no smiles from their set jaws, an expression between solid determination sad resignation, a greyness of skin and shadowed VDU eyes -- I suppose that, from Tuvalu's whitewashed shed to the Thames Flood Barrier's glass offices, they're all basically doing the same thing: making models and running them again and again, seeing what drowns. Trying to get used to the chilling inevitability.

I took the stream route to the bus-stop and that Grey Wagtail scolded me again (calm down! it's a public path!) -- further along there were fledgling Blue Tits in the Willow tree, gettting used to that whole flying around thing, cheeping away and generally being unbearably cute -- and, unfortunately, down on the path, a rather rough-looking young Blackbird who didn't have it figured out. Probably on his way out. It's a tough life, being a blackbird in the suburbs.

I'm thinking about how morally justifiable it is to water my plants and shrubs. On the one hand, it'll really improve the environment of my garden (currently rather bleak) for wildlife. On the other hand, every morning this week I've been walking past the pipe inspection men, sat in the back of their white van staring at greyscale images of pipes receding into blackness, trying to figure out where Thames Water's water is going.

* London's flood management is currently holding up well, but scary projections are provoking major management and re-direction schemes for when the water rises, and property developers in Docklands are being forced to integrate flood defences and alarms. Paris is still having major issues with heat. A huge swathe of Mumbai's flood-absorbing mangrove forests, which were disappearing under property development, have been bought for preservation by local industrialists, and the Mithi River is being dredged and cleared. However, recently it was exposed that the toxic sludge of the Mithi was being dumped -- ak, on the mangroves. Shanghai's building higher barriers, higher floood walls, sluices and other control devices. The shots of the workers with their flags were strangely moving. Tuvalu, well. It's already gone, really; erosion can sometimes be slowed, but not always. The meteorologist there was less actor, more observer to an island's passing. And where there was once a nation, there will only be a shadow on the sea.