Gray Skies in June

This has been the sky for most of June


I keep falling in the wet grass and looking up


A few hours of brightness last week made all the grasses burst open at once

As I lie here, tucked well under the covers, all I can hear is the pounding of the rain. It's chucking it down out there just now. There seems to be a pattern of 6 days rain and one day dry (nearly always a Tue or Wed). As a result UK has had severe flooding, particularly bad in parts of England where 3 people have died. One report said an entire month's worth of rain fell in 12 hours yesterday and 3 villages have been evacuated for fear of the local reservoir bursting and flooding the area.



One really simple step that millions of people can take to lessen the impact is as simple as a change of materials. Stop covering your gardens in plastic sheeting, concrete and tarmac. Instead use landscaping fabric or other permeable membranes which prevent weeds but still allow water to soak into the ground. Same goes for paths and driveways, make them permeable not solid and this will reduce the strain on drainage systems. There are many options for this and many of which I wrote about here on Sew Green in April.



I always prefer the options that use reclaimed materials so I liked the reused brick driveway that Greet made with the holes of hte bricks facing up to let the water through. It's not hard to find free bricks in the UK and many people would be more than happy for someone to relieve them of their piles now that it's going to cost them to dispose of them. In fact some git dumped a pile over what used to be the path to the shop, since they did that almost no-one walks there now and it's getting really overgrown. I take secateurs to cut my way through though I've not walked there all month because of the rain, the waist high grass completely drenches my clothes.



Last week the hill was visible through rain after 2 weeks of just not being there. Then on Monday, in between showers, the whole hill was visible so I took a pic for Mr P as he had probably forgotten what it looked like...






The respite from the rain meant peoples roses could open for a day without losing their leaves, I'll try and pass by this rose with Lucy if the sun comes out today, it will look gorgeous in sunshine. Yesterday was nice through the afternoon but I couldn't walk Lucy in the field because even the 'dry' parts will suck the boots off your feet...


Perhaps boot laces would be a good idea?

The sun popped out twice while I wrote this, but was soon followed by more torrential downpours. My courgette, which is I put in a compost bag about a month ago, hasn't grown AT ALL. In fact, it's going a bit yellow, presumably the rain is leaching all the nutrients out of the compost. The herbs and salad are a little better as I grow them in covered tubs. But they are still hardly growing. Not that I want to eat salad in this weather, soup, give me soup, hot veggies, mashed potato and steamed greens.