Oh fresh smells, perky plants and joyous thoughts of how lucky we are to live in a country with clean free water. The slugs join in with the joy and slither out from hidden camps, feasting on baby courgettes and tender lupins in a frenzy of excitement.
The chickens huddle together with damp feathers, looking thin and pathetic. To cheer them up I pull aside a few stones to reveal a tasty slug gathering. They look blank. It reminds of an old saying. ‘ You can lead a chick to slugs, but you can’t make it eat’.
It was gone in a day. That was Good Rain. It is all very well being a grateful gardener and annoyingly smugly happy about it, but there is the other sort of rain. Weeks of it. You try being grateful for not being in a forest fire or under threat from drought, but its impossible to keep that up. There is danger of being more fed up than the chickens were, or accidentally ending up on a camping holiday that looks like this. That’s Bad Rain.
The rowan tree is full of berries. Google says that this tree deals quickly with evil spirits and is yet another symbol of good luck and house protection. Google also says have to make jelly with the berries, especially if I plan to eat venison any time soon. I pick one to see what they taste like. Luckily Google screams a warning that they are poisonous when raw.
They were not there last week I swear. Bloody berries. Suddenly there are all sorts everywhere, pointing out that winter is coming. I could work myself to the bone making jam and wine whilst worrying about winter, or I could go swimming. July is too short, last year’s jam is still moulding in the cupboard and there are better products for cleaning sinks than home made wine. I ignore the lurking berries and go to the beach.
At the beach there are jellyfish, also lurking. So I picked a fight with my wet suit and won.
Elsewhere Bolsonaro is still testing positive for COVID but google says he is out playing with Emus. So it can’t be too bad for him despite our thoughts and prayers.
Delightful
Haha! Lovely Jo! xxx
Esther Williams would be proud of you!
Smiled all the way trough 🙂
Except the slug bit. I hate slugs.