Cats and dogs... and fish and frogs

Finally it rained!
A little at first, on my birthday. Just an hour or so, but enough to wake the grass up a little.

We had been enjoying temperatures regularly in the high 20s and even up into the 30s. As much as I like hot weather, the ground was like concrete and getting much work done outside was absolutely exhausting.

But then, on 27th July, two months since the drought began, the heavens opened. The temperature plummeted by 10 degrees and months worth of rain fell in a couple of days. The water butts filled within an hour, quite unprecedented. I got soaked unblocking a couple of gutters, but soon had the ponds full again courtesy of diverted rainwater.
The rain was the right sort too. A little heavy maybe, but there were gaps between downpours for the soil to soak up the moisture.

Within a couple of days the top 3 inches of soil became workable again and the air was cool enough for my old body to work outside. Only problem - I had one day before we were off on our summer vacation.

ed again... now back from our week away and we are pretty much back to square one. No more rain and temperatures back up in the 30s.
While we were in cool damp West Wales, Fenland was baking again.