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Fire, fire

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  ‘BUZZ, BUZZZ, BUZZZZ…’ What on earth was that? We were settling down for a cup of tea after dinner when we heard it. Then there it was again, and again the whole of our garden room was alive. I searched the house and the noise stopped. Of course it was the Government Emergency Alert. ‘There is a very high risk of wildfires…’. We had it twice from each phone once in English and once in Welsh. I thought at first it was a bit late telling us that when the heatwave seems to be over, but of course the land is still very dry. At home on the farm, I remember we used to regularly burn the stubble and one day it got out of hand, suddenly, the line of orange flames took another direction and was leaping into the next field. I was there with my uncle and he told me to run and tell Mam. We did not have mobile phones in those days, but we had a big heavy black telephone. I was only little and could not race as fast as the flames. I travelled up our cobbled lane and turned the corner and...
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Desperate times

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  It is still here, even though I keep thinking that it has gone. When will we return to normal? Flashing blue blaring lights are becoming a usual sight on our road. The heat waves keep on coming and although sometimes I think it must rain, it never does. The grass is so dry now that it easily catches light and that is why we are seeing so many red fire engines streaking by. The gardens and fields look dead, but they are not. Somehow our new trees are surviving. The ones we planted as soon as we came have got their roots down and are quite strong, the more recent ones have lost some leaves but are still holding on. I remember in 1976 looking up at the never-ending blue sky and wondering if it would end. It did and we had rain in September. Some plants seem to think that it is September already. We went on a country walk yesterday and the hedges were full of berries. There were red hawthorn, wild rose and guelder rose berries weighing down the shrubs so much that they were almos...
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The accidental traveller

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  “Stop!”   Mr T pointed towards the window. I stopped talking almost at once which was very difficult for me because I am sure that I was saying something very important. But he was insistent. “Look.” I looked and sure enough this was more important than what I was saying because there was a raindrop on the window. We have not seen a raindrop for many weeks and more important neither has our garden. It is so rare in fact that people on social media report “It’s raining here!” And my first instinct is to ask them where they are so I can go and share this phenomenon. Now here we were with our own rain. Our excitement soon faded, however, because although there were one or two more drops, they soon stopped and the sun came out again. Our garden like so many others is decidedly pale, wilting and dead but I went to see a friend the other day and his small front garden was full of colourful flowers. Admittedly it was edged by walls giving deep shade and it was mostly pots...
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Pot luck

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  I stood next to her in the supermarket as she was tapping away on her mobile. Nothing unusual about that, but she kept going to the plant stall nearby, checking the labels and then returning. “I am reading up about these plants,” she said, “I want to know all about them before I buy”. We are looking on our house plants differently these days. We are treating them almost like pets. I am certainly very fond of ours. You see, they were my companions in lockdown and they are still with me today. They kept me company through those long days. I noticed every leaf and every blemish. They were treated like royalty. We liked them so much that we took cuttings of them and now all these years later I feel so attached to them that our garden-room is in danger of being overrun by a jungle of leaves. Another strange thing happened to me in a different supermarket this week. We went up north to a Yorkshire family gathering. The extreme heatwave does not seem to have reached that far and t...
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Freedom

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  I am free. Now I can go where I want, when I want. They have finished and there is not a pothole in sight. All last month our roads have been closed on weekdays until the evenings. It has made for some very interesting driving. I followed the big yellow diversion signs until they seemed to peter out or got mixed up with some other road works. But it is not all bad I discovered some little Welsh villages that I had not seen before they seemed a long way out but at least the road was not closed. I got used to driving at 20mph going safely past houses and schools with beautiful countryside. I got used to exploring our county’s countryside too, far away from the roadworks. On a hot sunny day, we set off to see the blue butterfly fields in north Shropshire’s special heath land. It is the only place you can find the silver studied blue butterfly in the Midlands. I hoped that we would be lucky. We met a serious looking man with a huge camera lens. “Go over to the right where the hea...
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Shady business

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  It has gone at last. At least for the present time. I do not know about you, but I had to work out ways of managing the heat. When we lived in the cottage, we were quite cool indoors because the medlar tree shaded our sunroom in the morning and the old magnolia tree shaded the kitchen during the day. At mealtimes we sat under our quince tree, which had a canopy in the shape of a parasol. Here in the new house, we have no shade in the garden. Last autumn we planted some new silver birch trees. I kept them well watered in the spring but as the months wore on, I noticed that some did not come into leaf. What should we do? I watered them but, in the end, gave up and all that was left was the bare black skeleton. We would have to replant this coming autumn. But it meant a delay on getting shade. Trees take a while to be big enough to give shade. In town on the hottest day, I was very thankful of the established trees. These are the ones that have been spared by the council. What a...
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Time and tide

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  We have squatters. Last week the little house was empty and now there are occupants making a great deal of noise and fuss. I had hoped that the great-tits would come back for a second brood. We could see them all the way through the building of the nest to the feeding of their young. Only two weeks ago they were so busy, there was hardly any time between one parent leaving and the next one arriving with a caterpillar or fly. We did not see them fledge. One minute they were there and then they were not. The box was silent. All was deafeningly quiet until the male house sparrow arrived. ‘Look what I’ve found,’ he seemed to be shouting. And in no time at all a female had arrived and they were busily ‘decorating’ and doing all the things you do to make the house you have moved into comfortable. In our new house we have been busy getting our dining room sorted. I had worked hard to find chairs that were comfortable for me. At last, I found the perfect chairs and they are all I h...
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