The wind sounded like the sea this morning. That wide-throat white-noise roar of rollers beating themselves on the beach, somehow echoed miles inland by air raking through bare winter trees, singing the telephone wires, bursting out into wide gardens through the narrow alleyways between houses, and breaking in waves on the lawn.
It is oddly mild and, muffled against the gusty wind in the not quite light I can see that the ditches though full are not overflowing, and the fields are largely free of surface water. The ground is nonetheless saturated, every air pocket and worm worn burrow awash. The worms themselves, lacking lungs and unable to drown, can stand a week or two of being submerged and wait it out patiently, five hearts beating time away till the waters recede and the soil returns to a more pneumatic state.
The forecast for Kent suggests that we may be nearing the end of this chain of rotten weather systems. I’ll dare to hope that these winds blow the rain heavy clouds away as predicted and give us at least a few days of relative calm, before – who knows what? Maybe we’ll be next in line for the freezing conditions presently gripping the east coast of the US. Maybe we’ll just be in for traditional mild sogginess, but a chance for the ground to dry out would be just the thing.
In the meantime, I’m taking great comfort in the clouds passing over, happy to let the boisterous winds blow these last few weeks away.
It is oddly mild and, muffled against the gusty wind in the not quite light I can see that the ditches though full are not overflowing, and the fields are largely free of surface water. The ground is nonetheless saturated, every air pocket and worm worn burrow awash. The worms themselves, lacking lungs and unable to drown, can stand a week or two of being submerged and wait it out patiently, five hearts beating time away till the waters recede and the soil returns to a more pneumatic state.
The forecast for Kent suggests that we may be nearing the end of this chain of rotten weather systems. I’ll dare to hope that these winds blow the rain heavy clouds away as predicted and give us at least a few days of relative calm, before – who knows what? Maybe we’ll be next in line for the freezing conditions presently gripping the east coast of the US. Maybe we’ll just be in for traditional mild sogginess, but a chance for the ground to dry out would be just the thing.
In the meantime, I’m taking great comfort in the clouds passing over, happy to let the boisterous winds blow these last few weeks away.
