MORE RAIN

Enough said.

Yesterday R power washed some of the paving and I swept up after and brushed some replacement mixture into the cracks where the previous grouting was missing.

There is a leak in the pond.

Dug out the small ditch below the pond and raked out pond weed. Still leaking but at least the rain has filled it to the brim.

Time to cast the mind back to better weather - so a picture and a poem that has nothing whatsoever to do with the garden!

The photo came before the painting which now hangs somewhere in Overton near Heysham.

Also the picture has nothing to do with the poem as the image was taken in winter and the poem is about summer!

However, it is still good to sit outside the Mason's Arms above Bowland Bridge on a good day with good company (and a good pint) and take in the view.

How lovely are the long mornings this far north,

how quiet falls the night.

Here sunrise seems to linger

till night meets today,

and stars twinkle out

into a breath which is that dark

where two suns, rise and set, almost blend as one.

Grey light is never truly grey

but green or pink suffused

in such a way that ridge on ridge,

looking east from Strawberry Bank,

lies monochrome and silhouetted on the next.

Here distance swallows shape,

night is a time trapped between dusk and dawn,

a flicker in the sky.

A blackbird sings with a hoarse voice

from a fieldside rowan top.