"Tom" wrote I think it's about time some rain fell. Driving through Essex
is like going.
through a desert.

Guess we are lucky there has not been any widespread fires like in other
European heatwave areas.

But not as brown and shrivelled as I might have expected.

The cornfields are barren and very dusty after the harvest and subsequent
ploughing and replanting (the amount of dust harvesting itself generated was
remarkable, with all my windowcills getting covered, day after day [an
observation, not a complaint] but the trees and verges are still remarkably
green around here).

One tree that is worth mentioning is the poor old willow. They *are*
yellow, with piles of dropped leaves around their bases. All the others, I
think, look fairly normal for this time of year.

My lawn looks Saharan but IME it will only take 10 days of damp weather to
have it looking as though the drought had never occurred. The large cracks
that have opened up in the garden (shrinkable clay) will, I think, still be
there (again, IME) in November.


- Tom
Blackmore, SW Essex.