Britain has grown feet since the start of this weather; this weather: rain rain rain pouring rain … sigh … rain rain rain pouring rain … etc. Three feet, four feet maybe, growing up, growing down, growing here, growing there, gulping, burping along. The whole country is taller, wider, bushier, slightly blubbery.
Trees are noticeably fatter. I’m not just saying that – you should see the size of their waists. The girth. You can tell when someone has put on a little weight. You might not say so. But you notice. That’s how it is with the trees. I would never tell them to their faces. But I can tell you … they’re fatter. For sure. It’s their waists.
This rain – they’ve obviously been over-imbibing. Stacking on pounds like children stack lego blocks, like eskimos facing six months in stacked ice igloos with only their plumpness to survive.
Who knows when then next rains will be, ask the trees? Drink while yee can!
(As it turns out, it was less than five minutes.)
Plus a lot of it is water retention I hear them mumble …
Elsewhere fields of British vegetables are sinking in the mud. If the tractors try to go in to save them, they will also sink. It is a muddy dilemma. All anyone can do, including the tractors, is stand by, looking on helplessly. The tractors beam their lights every now and then to keep spirits up. Because even spirits are sinking. That’s how bad it is.
No-one knows what to do.
So we’re calling China … That’s what everyone does, in every crisis. Call China! …
“Hello, China? …”
and then,
“Our vegetable crops are floating in a sea of mud. Our tractors are helpless. We don’t know what to do …”
“No need to explain …” says China. ”Our vegetables are on their way …”
and then,
“Please say hello to your sixty jubilee queens. And Elizabeth. She is our favourite. Goodbye.”
(No-one but the Brits understand our Jubilee.)
China is a star these days. She is good at many things and has plenty to share with everyone. When we fall short of anything we turn to her and in one voice, we shout
“Give us a loan?”
And she will. She does. China has spares of everything.
Meanwhile Britain is watching a year’s worth of rain fall in a day in some parts of the country. Parts that were dumb with drought only three months ago are flooding, sinking, like fields of vegetables.
Across the pond, America is melting in the heat. What a world.
“If only we could ship the weather to one another, even just for a little while …” says Karen, my friend from the internet. Karen has the most wonderful blog, Draw and Shoot. A tonne of adoring fans.
Her blog is so full of beauty it is almost hard to look at. You have to have the stomach for it, the mettle, because it is unremitting. Set yourself some time, freshen your face and then look. I suspect her photographer’s eye is a metaphor for her; there they are, images to make our hearts stop, melt, fill. And then she says things like “ship the weather” which I immediately wished I had.
Shipping the Weather … How beautiful. I would love to write a story about that …
To Karen, all I said was:
“Give us a loan?”
like I was talking to China.
Yes! she said. Run with it!
So I said:
“Okay but do you mind if I don’t?” which is like me; generate a lot of hoo-ha, get everyone’s hopes up, then abandon ship. Like that.
Yeah? Thanks! But I’m not going to. I’m going somewhere else now! Bye-bye…
I think I do it to make sure people know I am alive.
Hey! You there!!!
“yeah?”
… just checking …
Except now I have changed my mind back. Which is like me.
The seagulls are still alive. So far no-one has kidnapped or killed them and they remain resident.
They never entirely won me over. I think it was just that one night, when I managed to sleep through their howls. It was more compassionate, not minding them. Not selling them.
Which was admirable but it has now been eclipsed by my wanting the very worst for them.
On the weekend it came to our attention that they have claimed the large, shared garden at the top of the stairs as their own. Now no-one else is allowed in it. If you try to, they will dive bomb you.
We were taken worse than by surprise. It was a shock. “I’ve just retracted my ad!” I thought. I was furious. Disgusted.
In order to access the garden, we had to trespass. We had to brandish big sticks and wave them in the air. We were just trying “put” chunks of the sycamore tree we felled somewhere else. We were “putting” the chunks of wood in the barbecue area. Because someone, one night, might want a bonfire.
It was our only plan
(and Pete’s idea.)
But those beasts gave us away! You couldn’t have wanted for more howling if it had been a full moon and you were a wolf. Or a group of schoolchildren held in at lunchtime by bad weather.
Weather – it always comes back to You. It is why the seagulls are now the owners of the garden, empty for a year, no-one apart from the gardeners setting foot in it because no-one apart from the gardeners going outside.
To the seagulls, it was vacant. And is now theirs.
We are living someone else’s weather …
shipped to Britain by mistake …
and now we can’t get rid of it.
Like the seagulls. Who were possibly lost. But are now very at home.
And it is we who feel lost.
Without the sun.
I loved this. If it makes you feel any better we here in good old Oz had a similar summer – in fact I really don’t recall summer at all this year. Now, in winter, we are having glorious sunshine – so lovely. Because of all the rain and now warmer weather all the spring bulbs are in flower way before winter is over. It sure is a topsy turvy world!
Sure is! Can you lend us some Kookaburras please? For a sing off with the seagulls – a sort of farewell party (if we are lucky!)
Thankyou for your lovely compliments and I am glad you enjoyed it! 
Most of us in the UK can empathise with these sentiments and you express them, as always, with humour and your own idiosyncratic style. i liked it …. a lot.
Oh thankyou! You have made my afternoon! I am so glad I was able to convey a British sentiment to British standard!
Thankyou so much! 
Hahahaha. I am laughing with you. While the rest of the US sizzled, we in Oregon and our neighbors to the north Washington have just had weather exactly like yours. Summer came last year in late August and hung around until mid October. Then the rain came, and came and came. Finally we have had 8 consecutive days with an alarming ball of fire thing in the sky. Year old babies are cowered under their mommas’ legs in fear of something they’ve never seen.
Oregon broke 70 year old records with the amount of rain. Our trees with the two years of extra water are Gi-hugic. Enormous. Making shade everywhere. Of all our tomato plants we have one single plant with a half dozen yellow blossoms and the yard is boggy everywhere.
Cheers!
so well described! It is so very wet isn’t it? But strange how the rain comes in bursts and then sun and then rain and then sun again… like it’s playing tricks on us! I’m fed up now! Oh and I LOVE Karen’s blog too it is just full of so much beauty
Fed up ! Yeah! Thankyou for your very nice comments:) Have fun
… Blimey, the weather … 
I can’t imagine going through day after day of rain like you describe. My computer screen is oozing water. That’s how well you describe it. As you say, some of us are burning up. We are presently on a road trip for ten days now and the temperatures have not been below 100. We really need to share this weather.
Yes, really. Glad you are taking it seriously.
Have a WONDERFUL trip!!! Best to you both! (Can’t wait to read about it and see the photos!)