Drink up, plants

August 13, 2018 by Ray Morgan

I'm so sorry to any of you who have outdoor plans this August that are being rained off. Genuinely. That heatwave made us forget what it was like to have a normal British summer, that life in the future would be exclusively sunny, hot, and blue-skied. But reality has hit. The rain has come. After weeks of teasing, we've finally got it - and with it that deep, metallic smell of rain on hot pavements. We even had hail on Friday, that was a bit weird wasn't it? It was so weird I had to film it and make sure I wasn't going mad.

On Sunday night, I lay in bed with the window open, listening to rain and the distant rumble of thunder. There's something in weather like that (here I go talking about the weather again) that makes me feel so - indescribable. I hear rain and I want to snuggle under duvets. I want to write poems, or make furious notes of book ideas that will heavily feature inclement weather. I want to light candles, cosying up in front of the TV, or watch the rain out of the window while 'Hedwig's Theme' plays in my head (wow I'm really confessing all here). It makes me think of holidays as a kid, in the car while it rained, maybe eating fish and chips out of the paper with a can of Vimto as a treat, Mum making tea from a flash on the dashboard with the windscreen all misty.

I guess I don't mind rain because well, we're used to it here aren't we? Also, I don't drive. So I'm well versed in schlepping about with DMs and a sturdy brolly. I actually quite like it. And now, of course, I see the Met Office forecast precipitation percentages and get all jazzed on behalf of our plants. Our dear, dear plants. Our bright and cheery window boxes, our shrubs that sway in the breeze, our verbena bonariensis that shoot up like foamy purple fireworks in our raised beds. Our plum tree, the new pink anenome, the breathy miscanthus grasses that seem to move in underwater-slow-motion. And our veg! Jo's been planting veg plugs; lettuce, kale and pak choi that now, with their intense rainstorm soaking, are as upright as little green soldiers.

We spent Sunday in a garden centre, my new happy place, loading up a trolley with all sorts of gorgeous plants, pots, seeds and bulbs. My in laws' car was fully loaded. We came home and went straight in the garden, unpacking our delights, potting up, planting in. It started to spit with rain, but I didn't care. We dug soil, hulked pots about, tried to position our recent beach-combing finds in the right spot. I had dirt under my nails. And despite the rain I was boiling hot. So by the time bedtime came around, and I was there in bed with my book, and we heard rain crashing down I thought of all the new plants and how much they'll need it. I'm just sorry if you had beach plans this week... British summer eh?

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