if there were only water

It was supposed to rain today.  In fact, there were going to be thunderstorms, and when I considered going up to London for a dose of art last week I decided against it, in case the lightning threw the rail service into chaos.  It's just as well I didn't go, because the trains were chaotic anyway, with a failed freight train at Chelmsford, and none of the exhibitions are due to close imminently.  But there was no rain.  No water amongst the rock, except for three millimetres in the night (according to the rain gauge) which made the garden look fresher, but wasn't enough to penetrate the soil.

I was rather looking forward to rain, partly because the garden needs it badly, and because then I could get on with housework without feeling I was missing out.  I was even going to spend an hour in the afternoon sitting down on the sofa and listening to last Monday's lunchtime prom of C.P.E. Bach from the Cadogan Hall on Listen Again, which I missed live.

I don't think I see or hear any more BBC output now when almost everything is available on request after the event than I did back in the days when you had to catch the transmission or wait a year for the repeat, because knowing that if I miss it I can probably catch it later makes me less organised about listening to it in the first place, and then half the time I don't get round to Listening Again.  It is a rare treat to spend an hour sitting and listening to music in the middle of the day, as distinct from having the radio on while getting on with something else.

I had to go shopping anyway, even though it wasn't raining, because I'd volunteered to cook.  It was my turn to do supper, and I wanted to try my hand at a honey cake.  The travails of Tesco and comparative success of Waitrose have been much in the news recently, and I can offer my two pennorth to Tesco's new Chief Executive, which is that they would do better if their product range was slightly more responsive to the changing seasons.  I thought the other day that chilled soup would be nice for lunch, as a change from cold meat, but Tesco's soup range seemed quite unaltered from what I might have found in February.  Pea and Ham or Butternut Squash, anybody?  I grumbled about this to the Systems Administrator, whose next Waitrose trip yielded Gazpacho and Minted Pea, which are rather more what you feel like when the thermometer's nudging thirty.  Though I was in Tesco's Clacton branch, so perhaps management thought they'd responded quite adequately to the hot weather by getting in extra burgers and barbecue sausages.

Now it is forecast to be sunny and dry for days, but I think I am going to have to wipe the kitchen cupboards and wash the hall floor anyway.  Joan Bakewell dismissed gardening as outdoor housework, but she was wrong.  Housework is a grim necessity, whereas gardening is life affirming.