No rain in April but don't be a Debby Downer

Why I'm missing the seasons.

I was in London last night. There and straight back. It was a my friends Jorge and David’s drinks to celebrate the success of their collaboration with Fortnum and Mason’s selling their beautiful antique furniture and curiosities. Good short and sweet, I was in the bath for 10.10 so that was good.

I got the 4.35 godsend of a bus that goes from the village here to Swindon bus station which is great because without this it is a £40 quid taxi fare to either Swindon or Charlbury Station and I love the feeling of looking after my money! I wish they would put a later service on but oh well, before this there was no bus to catch at all, so I won’t complain or I will try not to.

Yesterday morning, I saw the first swallow freshly arrived. It is difficult to describe the songs that swallows make, marbled, whirling light flutes.

Writing that ,it does not feel correct but they are excitable little whizzes. Anyway what a joy and I am glad I have a mind that notices them.

I worry though we are quite short on, it seems to me, on muddy and quiet shallow puddle like places for them to land discreetly on and peck up the muddy earth that they take back to create and repair their mud pie nests with. It has not rained now for what feels like possibly 4 weeks if not more.

The cowslips in the wildflower meadows near to the land I rent and keep my hens on are looking quite stunted for it. There are however winners and losers in this game of climate chaos with its now lack of seasonal reassurances. If you remember, this time last year, the bumblebees especially seemed done in, the endless wet and flooding of fields killed a huge number of the bumblebee queens and their emerging and vulnerable infant springtime colonies and so as a result, they had a dismal year, the same sort of monsoon springtime weather did little for butterflies. In the sunshine of the past week though, I have seen a fair few butterflies and bees, especially, the Brimstones, what a beautiful fluttering of lime rich yellow, completely magic. Butterflies very much seem to like honesty which is a biennial plant easily grown in a seed tray as it has helpfully large, full moon like circular seeds so sow yourself a tray of its seed this coming July, it will grow with gusto ready to be planted out as a seedling by September in the garden to overwinter and you will then have flower beds of lovely purple and butterfly attractive flowering honesty this time next year.

It was a wet winter, this almost past 2024/2025 one or was it? It felt like one at least certainly in the days of grey and rain, it felt tropical. I spent many sleepless nights concerned that all the rain we were getting should have been falling in South America as the Amazon rivers levels dwindled to record lows, not that many people knew about that it wasn’t reported hugely on mainstream news. Amazon river drought

I like noticing the weather, I like talking about the weather too, I’m British after all. I think its a good thing that as Brits, we should be talking about the weather it should connect us to the troubles that our farmers and nature face but I feel that less and less of us are talking about the weather in a manner that pairs us up as living beings that exist alongside with it and that is a major signalling problem, indeed to be dramatic to me it signals a major collapse in our society. Just as society is largely ignorant and disconnected from how our food is produced and where it comes from, we are even becoming alien from the weather that surrounds us.

The highlight question back at the Fortnum’s drinks, was asking Jo its director, how the bees on the roof were getting on, very well they are enjoying the sunshine so that is a nice thing to imagine them making Fortnum’s honey!

London is in fact a good place to be a honey bee, the parks provide a huge amount of forage as they have increased in their planting for pollinators to the benefit of us all. Last year, where St James Park meets the edge of Buckingham Palace there was the most glorious of annual summer time meadow full of Echium Blue Bedder and annual rudbeckias it looked sensational and was alive with bees.

I loved listening to Delia Smith being interviewed by Martha Kearney, Delia says quite early on that she misses the seasons. In an April absent of April showers, it is becoming more and more vital that we remember what the seasons as we knew them were - listen here Delia Smith this natural life