It’s eleven o’clock at night.  I just went out with Topsy the dog to collect the goats from the reservoir.  They were nervous on the way home, it’s dark when they look over at the woods, so who knows what might pop out?  The sky is blue with a few pink clouds, but there are no shadows, because the sun has gone behind the hills to the north.  There is the smell of wood smoke, every community has a bonfire on midsummer night.  Sankthansaften is the Scandinavian name for midsummer.  It’s the eve of the birth of St John the Baptist, known in the past in Denmark, apparently, as St Hans.  I’m not quite sure if there’s any other reason why we celebrate midsummer night on the twenty-third of June, rather than the twenty-first like the rest of the northern hemisphere.

From now on, the evenings begin to draw in.