SUNDAY,DAY OF RUST

Our village,like many another in England and Wales is ,not to put too fine a point upon it sodden! I can count on one hand the number of days on which it has not rained during the past month and it seems certain that we have not yet seen the last of the wet spell.

Everywhere the ground is waterlogged and squelches horribly if one is foolhardy enough to walk upon it,allotments and gardens are deserted at a time when many keen growers of vegetables would be hard at it preparing the ground for planting. Alas,my own gardens are destined to be much neglected this year as I am now finding walking, indeed even staying on my feet very painful.

My brick sheds are dry,in so far as there are no leaks in their roofs but the amount of moisture in the atmosphere makes me very glad that I cleaned and oiled my tools at the end of the year and that all electrical equipment is suitably wrapped. Even so rust is appearing everywhere, most particularly our wrought iron fence which seems to have been washed clear of paint and is now a fashionable rusty red hue.

Metal arches, bird feeding equipment, gates and so forth are also following the fashion and are rusting with a will.

A friend of mine told me that he had purchased a wire brush to tackle his rusty double gate,if only it would stop raining long enough for him to do the job, and another desperate soul was actually seen painting his railings in the rain!!!!

At our local hardware store such things as fence paint and outdoor paint are super glued to the shelves as are the young plants on offer (far too early in my opinion) and the garden centres hopeful display of lovely but prohibitively expensive garden furniture is as badly neglected as their potato sets.

Sundays these days are spent on other things than D.I.Y. and gardening, and as we all contemplate the damage done by the wet weather I will wager that there will be more painting than gardening done this year.

On a brighter note during a brief trip out during an even briefer dry spell I came across several Hazel bushes each one resplendent with wildly waving catkins of bright gold. A little further on the first white tips of pussy willow were struggling to break from their winter prison.

There is always hope and I hope very much that with all the rain we have had there will be no talk of hosepipe bans this summer. Of course this cannot be guaranteed as we have seen in the past,I for one will have something very choice to say should the unthinkable happen...again.