So May has been with us for a week now, issuing in the idea of summer but with none of the traditional accoutrement's of the season. Warm weather has been lost somewhere between the UK and the arctic, while drought has been signified by the deluge and flooding that we've had ever since the hose pipe ban was announced a month ago. An announcement by the way, that had me purchasing water butts by the lorry load meaning the side of the extension now looks like an oil refinery. All this to preserve my precious plants from being parched even though they are now looking more like they could do with a towel and a sun bed.
There's a saying that goes 'it's great weather for ducks' which I can confirm is true and add to that 'for geese too', as there are great honking flocks of them noisily strutting their stuff on the many ponds that have appeared in the meadow opposite.
Other wildlife that are enjoying the daily downpours are the slugs and snails, slimy assassins that have proven to be immune to the nematodes, coffee grounds, and any other treatment I've used to keep them at bay this year and are now in competition with the rabbits to see who can be first to nosh every weary waterlogged plant down to the ground.
These particular young furry felons spend their days flaunting their fur coats against this unseasonal cold, caring not a jot as I bang on the window at them, instead simply staring back at me with their big doe eyes and bits of my beautiful garden hanging from the sides of their mouths, giving them the appearance of old fashioned country bumpkins.
They have also chosen to diversify their already expansive diet and eat my lupins, aquilegias, crocosmias, in fact anything they fancy. This feasting has forced me to take the drastic action of surrounding everything in green mesh and this coupled with the multitude of land mine like slug traps dotting the borders, means the gardens starting to resemble some sort of floral prison camp.
Not all the fauna are fairing as well as the aforementioned, usually there is a reassuring buzz in the air by this time as bees busy themselves among the blooms, but now they are silent and those that have dared to venture out and survived the daily bombing of raindrops are to be found sleepy and sad on the green but flowerless flora. I heard that they are starving at the moment because the rain is preventing them from leaving their hives which is hard to imagine a more sorrowful story.
The other creature that is not fairing so well is me, bad weather and bad news battle to bereft me of any hope of a sunny disposition. This is usually my favourite time of the year when the light nights lift my mood and the garden gifts me with happiness but as the rain and temperature keeps falling, suspending the garden in frozen flowerless green, it becomes difficult not to let ones mood become as soggy as the surroundings.
Anyway sometimes we are so sad we forget to see and actually the gardens not just green, its luminescent, the rivers running fast and deep and the ponds and pits that were dry and desolate a few months ago are full to the brim with water and life so things aren't so bad.
I'm still escaping to Spain next week though for some sun.
