swamp fever

The Systems Administrator awoke with a strangled shout at 4am, and it turned out that something cold and damp had walked over the SA's feet.  The thing advanced up the bed, purring, and was revealed as Our Ginger.  The cats are not allowed in the bedroom, but the door couldn't have been latched properly. Four in the morning is too close to when I start to wake up anyway for it to be a good time to be woken, and it took me a long time to go back to sleep.  When I got up it was drizzling, a fine mist of rain.  The whizzer behind the house (that's a wind turbine on the farm behind the house.  I have mentioned it before, but not for a long time) was stationary, and the air felt like cold soup.

By mid morning the temperature was up to 15 degrees, and the relative humidity was 90 per cent.  I went and pricked out some pots of seedlings in the greenhouse, where the air still felt like soup but at least I was not being drizzled on.  Fine rain and a temperature in the mid teens are bringing on growth at a terrific rate, including the weeds.  The SA confessed to having no idea how to mow the lawns, given that they are too wet to put the lawn tractor over.  If the rotary mower will cut the grass it certainly won't pick up the clippings, and every bit is going to have to be raked up by hand.  Shrubs are collapsing and splaying apart under the weight of water on their abundant foliage.

My Pollyannish determination to enjoy life despite the weather is starting to be severely tested.  In fact, I think the weather is driving me slightly mad.  If anybody with materially less than an acre of garden to worry about tries to grumble to me about the state of it, they will not get a kindly and considered response.  You think you have problems?  Try walking a mile in my wellington boots.  At least we are not opening to the public this weekend (or any weekend), unlike the treasurer of the music society who is participating in his village Open Gardens on Saturday and Sunday.

By late morning it had stopped drizzling.  It was not exactly cheerful, but moisture was no longer exuding from the air, and the whizzer had started to spin again.  I went and pulled weeds out of the gravel.  One advantage of having extremely sharp drainage in part of the garden is that you can get on it ten minutes after the rain stops. I counted four different sorts of clump forming weed grass, including Poa annua, plus a broad leafed sprawling one, a very fine upright one, and a more vigorous upright one with shiny leaves.  My two rare and precious pines, so rare I have forgotten what they are, are making new growth.  They were tiny when I put them in, so small that never mind not making a landscape impact, they were liable to be accidentally trodden on, so I'm glad they're starting to move.

Great tits are using one of the starling boxes, which is nice, as the starlings have refused to since we put them up.  They used to nest in the roof space above our bedroom, but last year the SA blocked the hole in the soffit board before they could start.  They are incredibly noisy neighbours, banging on the ceiling very loudly during the night.  Another lot always used to nest in the roof at the front of the house, and they have been left in peace as they are only over the spare room, so we still have some resident starlings.  I think they are wonderful birds, and would be very sorry not to have any.  We just didn't want them banging on the bedroom ceiling in the small hours, just as Our Ginger is a wonderful cat, but that's not to say that you want mystery cold feet walking over your own in the night.