Say 'good bye' to the summer

Looking back, I note that on precisely this date last year the blog carried this same heading!

So, some things don't change!

Throughout the long wet days of June, July and August we have consoled ourselves with the knowledge that an Indian Summer was just round the corner! It hasn't arrived yet - and it's probably hopeless to pretend that it will now.

Although last November did surprise with wonderful sunny days so perhaps we are too hasty in consigning the never-arrived summer to the scrapheap!!

The last fledgeling swallows left the barn last week, (a few days earlier than last year) using the few sunny spells between showers to accumulate and refine their flying skills! We counted 6 broods again this year - we wonder if the same families return year after year? It's nice to think so; that they while away the winter in Africa planning their return to the Lincolnshire barn where they were hatched! For now though it's all quiet again, the guano removed and the stables 'clean' for the next 8 months! Ahhhh, shame......!

August was the wettest for 100 years; despite that and the lack of sun (we read in the paper that S.A.D. sufferers are advised to take Vit. D suplements!), the farmers have used every opportunity to gather in the harvest. This time last year it was about done. Not so this year. It's well behind and wheat still stands in some fields - black and sodden. Is it worth gathering or will it just be ploughed in???
Our own harvest is much depleted. Jam making has been confined to a few pounds of loganberry; the orchard being all but devoid of damsons, gages and plums. Apples are way down in quantity and a while off picking yet. Even the hedgerows don't look to be carrying their usual abundance of elder and currant. A meagre harvest for the pantry then. And what to decorate the church window with this Harvest Festival? Sodden turfs may not be appropriate.....
Even the autumn hunting 'season' reckons to be starting two or three weeks later than usual....
"So much for global warming" we all mutter.. except the ducks who are thriving .....

Ah well; it'll soon be time to batten down the hatches, light the fires and dream of sun-soaked desert isles......