summer clouds: look up!

It's finally proper summer in London, but instead of last year's baking blue skies, we have soothing breezes and enough cloud cover to provide relief from the sun.

Clouds in sunlight are glowing, joyful mysteries, wonderful to look at and hard to photograph. That didn't stop us from trying!

On windy days we had thin streaks that stretched across the sky like Asian paintings of dragons.

In Chinese legend the dragons don't control fire, but wind and water.

They rule the skies and oceans, dispensing wisdom to deserving humans. This 'dragon' looks particularly real, with its spine and mane made of cirrus cloud - or maybe diffused jet stream.

Sunset is a particularly good time to capture clouds. They're too beautiful to miss!

In some light they look more like some Turner or Impressionist masterpiece laid on with impasto than actual weather.

British summers have long days and very short nights - the sun barely sets, and in the midsummer weeks the nights are more like a very long twilight shading to dawn.

It's part of what makes summer our favourite season!