Monthly Archives: August 2009

The rain dropped away, or dripped away if you prefer, yesterday evening.  The garden birds celebrated by treating me to a beautiful evening chorus, impossible to capture, though I did try:

And then, this morning, it’s raining again.  To my great delight, it’s forecast to rain all week:

A rainy week ahead

Is it any wonder I speak so often to the subject of rain?

You just have to make yourself enjoy it, is all.  The soft grey melancholy of it. The sound of it, dripping through the trees and down the gullies.  The sight of a large grey cat sticking a nose out of the door, withdrawing, and stomping back into the house in disgust.

Ah, the disgust of a large grey cat!

Actually, I’m pretty positive about it.  Let’s face it, when you live in Wales it doesn’t pay to gripe about the weather too much.  My neighbour, a Welshman, hates it with a vengeance.  But then, like my neighbour in Lincolnshire, he seldom has a good word to say about anything.  I’m grateful for a warm, dry house, and a window through which I can see trees and sky when I look up from my book.

The only bothersome thing about it all is that I’ve been unable to cut the grass for two weeks now and it looks like being at least another week before I can get the mower out.  Electric mowers and rain don’t go together, not with any degree of safety.  I’ve put it to Graham that we ought to acquire a small petrol mower, one that can cope with wet grass.  On the other hand a few bushels of slate chippings would allow us to turn the front patch over to being a slate garden, along with some suitable heather and conifer plantings.

All in all, though, I’m content and reasonably happy in my nice little house, even at the end of an August which has seen more rain than sun.  I have a store of good sunny days in my head, more than enough to see me through a year of wet Augusts.

Just as yesterday was a string of hours each holding at least a moment of sunshine, today is all misty again, and it’s raining.  At this rate the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness will arrive without any kind of demarcation line between Summer and Autumn.  The temperature will drop slowly but surely, the leaves will fall from the trees and, between the naked branches there will be… mist.

I wonder how the squirrels feel about it. Now that the nuts and berries are ripening, have they started building their food caches to see them through the winter? Or are they, like me, clinging on to the thought that wet or not, this is still summer, and there will probably be a couple of short end of season dry and sunny periods to mark the beginning of autumn.  Will St Martin and St Luke come through again this year with a little summer or two?

It’s all worthwhile watching, that much is certain.

Thinking of laying up winter stores, and frugality in general, I have been carrying out a survey of my finances, to see how they’re faring in this time of much talk about debt and poverty.  Can’t say there’s anything to complain about.  I’ve not touched my reserves for a long time, and I’m still salting a little bit away each month against any truly rainy day that may come along.  Welsh rain does not count on that score, of course.

Careful budgeting and sensible living does have its reward, that’s for sure. I am beginning to wonder if the time may be imminent when I shall be able decide that frugality has reached its target and that I can afford to go out and spend some surplus rather than lodging it in secure savings.  It’s rather nice to feel that it’s a possibility rather than just a dream.

Hey ho.  I’m waffling.  Time for lunch and a little nap, I think, to dream of something nice.  Dreams are free, after all, and do nothing to erode reserves.

This must be Friday because it’s raining.  But then, it was raining yesterday, and that was Thursday.  And, the day before that it was raining, too, and that was Wednesday.

Need I go on?

faster than a dancing pencil
rain slants across the window
Friday morning

When I wake in the morning I stand in the kitchen doorway, Dolly at my side.  I have a mug of steaming coffee in my hand.  Clouds roll in from the west, across the valley and off to the east, and the sun sees every break as an opportunity.

Shall I do the same, I wonder, and seize the opportunity to go shopping when there’s a break?  I’ve been putting it off for days now, apart from a quick dash to Morrison’s in Neath yesterday evening for wine and milk.  I can get quite inventive with eggs, bacon, potatoes and frozen vegetables, but there are times when the need for a bit of steak or a slice of pork loin is simply too tempting to defer.

There’s only a month and a few days left now until the end of this home alone period and then the house will fill with chatter and laughter, excursions will happen, and the world will be back to rights.  Meantime there’s nothing quite so comforting as sitting by the window with a fresh-brewed cup of lapsang souchong and the tarry essence of wandering memories.