"All right, Mr. DeMille, we are ready for our close-up"

The hens (from the left) Zaza, Berthe, Becassine and (in front) Tallulah, back-lit like film stars.

These are not the same hens as last year - the gone but not forgotten Hilda and Evadne - who were killed by a fox in December. I made the run more secure before the four new hens arrived in February.

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There seems to have been a lot of fox activity in the garden during last night: signs of digging in the compost bin, things knocked over, a long-extinct bird (probably a pigeon) on the ground by the bay tree, and droppings that appeared to contain a claw of whatever the fox ate recently. Actually, it looked like a chicken claw so I wonder if someone round here has lost a hen recently.

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The yield this year from the Gardeners' Delight and Golden Sunrise tomato plants is fan-tas-tic. Every day, yet more handfuls ripen. Here are a few of the early ones, photographed one day in August in a heart-shaped ramekin by Le Creuset.