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After many weeks of silence, I'm back. And I am not alone.

A small black dog watches me as I type this. It's early morning, the weather's good, and I'm out on the terrace overlooking the vegetable patch – the tomatoes are huge and just starting to ripen, long green cayennes twist and dangle from the slender branches of the pepper plant, courgette flowers raise their crinkled yellow faces to the warm summer sun and the rather terrifying pumpkin vines grow several inches a day as they quietly plan