Galaxy wolf on a forearm

The hosepipe ban has finally lifted, so I have spent the whole week drowning the runner beans to make up for lost time. You asked what the sky did over the allotment, so here it is. Last Thursday, once the Wilsons' dog had stopped its barking, I took my flask to the bench by the water butt and waited for the dark to settle. It came slowly, a bruise of violet over the church, then teal bleeding up behind the chimneys until the whole sky looked dipped in paint.

Then the stars came out, not scattered the usual way but gathered in clusters, small white points with pink ones among them, as though someone had flicked a brush across the lot. Mr Okonedo from plot nine calls such things the wolf's eyes, which is what he says after a sherry. I thought he was daft until the cloud drifted off the hill and there it was: a long grey muzzle laid across the Milky Way, ears pricked towards our gate, its blue and violet fading into the nebula around it.

I fetched him. He was already on his feet with his torch, and he did not say a word, only switched it off and let the moon do the rest. We stood among the cabbages watching the thing breathe in and out until the milk bottles on the step caught the light.

Don't worry about the beans, they will forgive us. Come up in August and I'll cut you a sprig of the sage. Yours, Margaret.