Monday 2nd july

A bit of good weather and everyone is out trying to get on top of the mess their gardens have become.  Three months of wet weather and the plants have run riot.  And despite what we saw as a lack of sunshine, with overcast and cloudy skies, the sun was still there all along.  The plants do not need blazing sunshine to grow; the chlorophyll in their green leaves reacts to the sun’s rays no matter how thick the cloud-cover.  And all this rain has just been wonderful for them.  So, it was out with the shears and secateurs, and hacking back time.  The amazing tangle of ivy and bindweed and nettles stifling but not killing off all the regular plants you planted a few years ago which are now huge bushes and in some cases trees.  And tomorrow it will be a trip to the recycling centre, everyone with nice green canvas bags, and in some cases a few black sacks full too.

So, despite our moaning about how wet it has been, the gardens have never had it so good,  And that little day in the garden, even if it didn’t feel so warm with a brisk wind blowing, will have done us all the world of good too.  The English seem to need to garden, to nurture and to shape, to clip and to mow, and with so many wet weekends we have had withdrawal symptoms of late.  And now that the work is done and the lawn mown, and the bushes trimmed and the weeds hacked back a bit we too can relax, safe in the knowledge that we will have to do it all again in a few weeks time.