I always loved that song by the Undertones, a track that just has to be played when summer comes…

The Koels are back in town after a long break in Papua New Guinea, busily laying eggs in other birds nests – such tropical cuckoos. Wonder how long it will be before my friend Alan, of New Farm, starts complaining about their incessant overnight calls. There’s a lot around his new pad.

The first Giant Lacewing, drawn to the windows by the lights of the house, rustled in wings against the glass. Their larvae feed voraciously on aphids but the adults are the size of a dragonfly.

Last night the mole crickets started burrowing deep into the soil underneath the mulched footpaths in the vegetable garden. The signs of their digging were conical mounds of beautifully sieved soil punctured at the top by a circular tunnel hole almost the diameter of two pencils.

My Coelogyne orchid has just sprouted a short curtain of ivory flowers almost overnight…all signs that spring has yielded to summer.

Must go…our friend, Damo, has just arrived and I’ve got to start cooking. Mangelwurzels are a frequent feature at dinner here from spring to early summer.

Jerry Coleby-Williams