Cicadas

It is definitely the height of summer here - the scent of barbecues is in the air every evening, the gardens around us are a riot of colour, and the cicadas have hatched. We went all of a sudden from nothing to the almost deafening sound of cicadas in all the trees and bushes around us - they start up just as I'm heading to work, and keep going until the sun has gone down. After not being able to see any last year, this year they seem to have lost their shyness, and are clinging to anything which could be remotely seen as being tree-like. The neighbours' wooden fence was covered in them when they first hatched, and the telegraph poles still have a number clinging to them all the way up. One even came and investigated our washing (though it didn't like us peering at it, and flew away rather rapidly). They really are beautiful



The stick insect (well, I say 'the' - I don't know if it is the same one...) came back to the olive tree as well.


The garden is definitely being successful - I have dug up the onions, and pickled a whole load of them, the chillis are storming away (I have at least three different species growing at the moment), I have been eating tomatoes most days this week, the olives and lemons are growing, and even the fig is getting in on the action - there is one solitary fruit growing, but I'm not going to hold my breath, as I've got to this stage with figs before and they've always fallen off. I'm hoping that the warmer weather here will help it on its way!