SIR — Saturday was one of those rare champagne sort of days followed by, perhaps, the most balmy of English summer evenings this year. We chose to sit out in the garden for our dinner and could overhear the gentle murmuring of one of our neighbours doing the same. We tidied up the dishes and took the remainder of the bottle of wine back out into the garden at just after nine to await the arrival of the bats flitting over the pond and the nightly ritual of the resident thrush, blackbird and robin sending all the wildlife off to bed with a song. At just on half past nine came that other song of summer, another neighbour cranking the motor mower into life. There was just enough daylight left to mow the grass and destroy what can only be found in an English garden at nightfall. Ken Cordingley, Catwell, Williton.