Soilman

I’m building a fucking ark.

PS I’m having a Spring clean of the site, which includes my blogroll. Any site that’s been inactive for more than a year will be deleted I’m afraid – I’ve already removed a few. At the end of May, I’ll be deleting anything that’s been inactive for six months or more. So if that’s you, and you wanna keep a link on my site – get posting!

Wouldn’t it be great if it, like, stopped raining?

I know. Hard to imagine. In the part of the country where I live, the sun has absented itself now for – what? – about 11 months. Seriously. The last warm, sunny days were in early June last year. Since then, it’s been gloom and rain non-stop.

Although I’m used to this – Brits are all used to this – I don’t find it any easier. In fact, I reckon it’s harder. Folks from warmer climes often enjoy the novelty of cool cloud and rain. I’m to the manner born… so I’m fed up to the back teeth.

This is why UK citizens will do anything – really, anything – to get a bit of sun. Holiday in Syria? Sure, great. Sod the bullets. Just gimme some rays.

I’m reduced to germinating my sweetcorn in the house. It’s not even warm enough in the greenhouse.

God give me strength. And please, please, please… stop this fucking rain.

Apologies for total silence on these pages. Reason: Some moron made the predictable error of claiming Britain was facing a terrible drought, and might face water rationing for years.

Consequence: The wettest April since records began. I’ve hardly been able to set foot outside for three weeks.

They really should know better. Look up the name Dennis Howell and learn from history.

Because they’re mostly morons, human beings forget that there is no such thing as an average year. No year is ever average. It’s above average in certain indices (sometimes well above) or below average (ditto). The average is an approximate halfway point between the normal extremes.

Sure, we’ve had two dry winters. But the year I moved into my my current home, the lawn was underwater from November until February. It will be that way again sooner or later. Probably – because of the law of averages – sooner.

If you’re unlucky enough to have caught my rantings on Twitter, you’ll know we’ve had rain in south-eastern England.

A fair bit, I’m relieved to report: more than an inch on Sunday night and some good, strong, prolonged showers since.

But you won’t be surprised to hear that I’m not hanging out the bunting… yet. After four months of almost total drought, even the 3-4cm of rain we’ve had in the last few days is a piffling drop in the ocean.

I did a bit of digging on my vegetable plot last night, and the ground is still utterly dry below half a spade’s depth.

We need a LOT more rain where that lot came from.

PS One very good thing about the rain is that it’s arrived just in time to bulk up the early new potatoes. A heartfelt ‘thank you’, then, to the Higher Power.