Raining weather

As I sit here writing this today we're experiencing our umpteenth hour of continuous rain and a cold NE wind. Apparently, we still have a round fifteen hours more of this same weather to come - all given the name of "Storm Alex" - although it's hardly a storm, but I guess it looks more dramatic in the media.

Two days into October and it suddenly feels like winter, outside it is wet, windy and cold and the central heating had a brief start up to take the chill off the bungalow. The endless dry weather of the recent summer - the dust, the heat, the dry and cracked ground, the dry and yellow grass, are no more - the drought is over. Perhaps soon I'll be writing about the endless wet and muddy conditions, such are the cycles and complaints of an outdoors person's life. The thing is, here, when we get a spell of a particular type of weather, it seems to get stuck, hence the long, dry and rain-less summer.

My garden, after a couple of spells of rain this week and today's continuing deluge, is now suitably re-watered and the lawns are beginning to re-green again, no more a dead yellow and dry grass stalks. The bird table drips water from it's waterlogged surface and the sparrows look bedraggled in the hawthorn hedge, crane flies pepper my windows with their long-legged, prehistoric looks. The bird feeders swing violently from their hooks in the wind, scattering sunflower hearts across the lawn, food for the pigeons and doves later.

I doubt that much difference will be apparent on the reserve tomorrow, perhaps a film of water over the mud that was showing in the ditches. Until the marshland alongside has sponged up enough water to soak down to a sufficient depth, little will escape into the ditches, ditches that are three feet or more below average depth. Odd Chiffchaffs still call from the boundary bushes before departing south but the reed beds are now empty of their warbler cousins, only Bearded Tits now call there, swaying to the rhythm of the windy reed stems, calling to the passing season.

The bottle of red wine on the work surface holds my attention, it speaks of memories and warmth on this cold and watery day. Perhaps just a glass, perhaps two, and to take the time to recall summer's best memories - yes, that's what I'll do.