Rain & Fire.

It has rained here the last two days. The fifth heatwave of the summer appears to be over. Wessex Water which is our local water company brought in a hosepipe ban a few days ago, so I will be using my watering can for the foreseeable future for the evening ritual of watering the garden. The sparrows seem to have settled in nicely in the tree at the end of the garden. I put some bird food out for them every day and then sit in my kitchen watching them descending and ascending. The big event last week was the partial eclipse of the sun. On the news they were telling everyone not to look at the sun directly. We were advised to get special glasses. I must have watched hundreds of glorious evening sunsets over the years without the need for glasses, so I still can’t fully understand why you can’t watch an eclipse in the evening. 

Anyway, I wasn’t going to risk it, but you couldn’t buy the glasses around here in any shop. I had to settle for fetching an aluminium colander from the kitchen and holding it up to the sun and watch the reflection on my white garden wall. I saw 61 mini partial eclipses which was a bit underwhelming. It did go quite dark, the temperature dropped slightly and a breeze began. Birds flew by as if it was time to roost, but it didn’t seem like a major memorable experience. The following evening something happened which had a much bigger impact locally. We had a big fire on the hillside near the White Horse. It took several teams of firefighters quite a few hours to get it under control. Luckily it didn’t reach the White Horse itself, although it was heading in that direction.  In the light of day you could see the whole hillside is blackened. It is mainly grassland up there so it should grow back quite quickly with some rain. 

Compared to what people in Spain, France, Greece and other countries have suffered this summer it is nothing. Even elsewhere in Britain people have had worse fires with houses burnt to the ground. Climate change is the cause of it and is the major problem facing the world today. It can only be solved globally by all the countries working together. Some of the leaders of major countries are so stupid they deny it is happening and would rather start wars they don’t know how to finish. It is very frustrating, so before I start a political rant I’m going back to watching my sparrows. I didn’t think the photo of my Mirabilis Jalapa in my last gardening post was very good so I have taken another one. Cheers.