I can’t believe I’m already moaning about lack of rain. Jeez, it’s only April.
Reviewing my last few years of posting, I notice that the rain theme runs through my blog like shit through sewers. I whinge about it endlessly. Too much rain, too little rain, wrong sort of rain… you name it, I’m boring for Britain about it.
But the overriding leitmotif is drought. ‘We need rain’ is my nagging, plaintive refrain. There’s never enough.
This has worsened in the last 2-3 years. When I first started my vegetable plot, 6 years ago, drought wasn’t an issue. We had dry weeks, sure. Even the odd fortnight of sunshine. But never months on end without rain.
Nowadays I expect drought. It’s an annual event – usually bad, sometimes serious. Last year, I counted 140 days without rain from early March. This year, the pattern’s repeating.
Two swallows do not a summer make… but obviously I suspect global warming. I live in a dry part of the UK, so I guess we’d see the effects here first. I’m certainly feeling them. They’re making my gardening painful.
The weird thing is that I’m almost alone in noticing this. The folks who surround me every day, with rare exceptions, are urban office workers (as, indeed, am I). They have no connection to gardening, or farming, or anything much that depends upon the weather.
When I moan about lack of rain, they listen politely. Most nod kindly, perhaps offering a ‘Really? Wow, I hadn’t noticed’.
But mostly they just stare at me suspiciously. Their thoughts are clear: “Poor bastard. Spends too much time with his marrows. He’s lost it utterly.”
Please, please reassure me that I’ve not lost it utterly. Obviously if you live in Wales or Scotland, you – like my colleagues – will be wondering what the fuck I’m going on about.
But is anyone else suffering the drought nightmare?
