Yes, I know! There’s been a bit of a hiatus here.

It’s because I am not feeling inspired to write. And there doesn’t seem to be much around at the moment I feel compelled to write about.

Oh, sure, there’s plenty going on in the world. The news seems mostly about direly boring politicians as usual. That and the calamitous nature of “things”.

And there’s not a whole lot happening in my world despite seeming to be busy. Most of the efforts recently seem to have gone into making some progress on my family history. Which is good, and which is slowly paying dividends. But it isn’t something to generally enthuse other people.

But hey, we’re British! So what better to do on a wet April day that indulge in that world-famous British pastime of talking about the weather!

It’s supposedly the wettest April on record in the UK. Well, yes, the weather has been dire for the last month. Today it’s blowing half a gale and peeing down with rain. AGAIN! SE England has reportedly had over 40mm of rain in the last week and over 140mm this month — that’s well over twice the April average. And the forecast is that there’ll be no let-up in May.

Which sort of disinclines one to venture out unnecessarily.

And there won’t be anything by way of a fruit crop this year. Our apple and cherry trees have been in bloom for the last week, and are almost over. It’s not been a week for bees to be out and about pollinating the flowers. Except perhaps for a couple of sunny mornings.

And what of the drought? Well yes, we still have a drought. A month’s heavy rain won’t refill the aquifers or the reservoirs overnight, although it will help. That takes time.

And once there is drought the soil dries out and the subsequent rain just runs off rather than soaking through properly. Hence we get flash floods and swollen rivers. Travelling to the south coast a few days ago it was noticeable that every river was in spate.

Drought we certainly do have. There is an area of our garden which usually has standing water after any significant rainfall, and it is noticeable that the standing water hasn’t been there until this morning. Our houses were built in 1930 on what was previously farm/park land. We suspect that where we get standing water is where the builders likely backfilled a field ditch with rubble but the ditch still runs with water from a small nearby spring. Dowsing certainly tells us there is running water there.

But how do we have a drought? I ask because my fish pond is overflowing and has been most of the winter. The water level is usually down by 2 or 3 inches by the Spring. But not this year; if anything it has been consistently 2 to 3 inches higher than normal, and overflowing, with no effort on my part.

On the other hand the garden is looking wonderfully green with all the water. And the grass is growing like Topsy — well it was top-dressed with “home-grown” compost a few weeks ago!

But it is essentially uninspiring and demotivating all round. Where’s my summer?!