Here comes the rain again. An unusual sight travelling into London on Thursday morning: the landscape in misty precipitation. The rains returned with a vengeance, in Hitchin at least. Nothing to speak of in London but when I returned that evening I admired a particularly dramatic cloudscape and sunset as the train approached Hitchin. 

 As I walked from the station I noted a good deal of surface water on the streets and a fine layer of silt everywhere. Must have rained heavily I thought. In fact there had been an astonishing deluge in the middle of the afternoon lasting about thirty minutes- flash flooding all over town and the River Hiz burst its banks in several places. (not to mention my father's kitchen floor becoming a puddle when the outside drain overflowed)

 A friend described sitting in her garden; it began to rain so she went inside. Then torrents came down with a roll of thunder that didn't stop, just kept rolling for the duration of the deluge. She said she had never heard that before.

 Looking at the aftermath my sense is that rain fell with a greater intensity than any other rainstorm in Hitchin in my lifetime. And this after the hottest, driest summer since records began... 

Getting that change in the weather, last days of summer elegiac feeling.

 

 Enjoying some mellow sunshine at the music school. A more usual temperature for late August after the heatwaves (though still no rain to speak of).

 Benslow was originally a country house commissioned by the botanical pharmacist William Ransom in 1859, later the home of the Seebohm family. Bequeathed to the Rural Music Schools Assoication by Esther Seebohm in 1952. 

 My father was a very active board member in the 70s/80s/90s, indeed one of a group of supporters who prevented the property being sold to developers in the 1970s. My old friend Jif became the gardener there in the late 90s and did amazing work developing the garden as it exists now. 

 

 Even marshy habitats are dry. I have always known this shallow natural pond on Oughtonhead Common to be full (as seen above in March). But not now...

 What a difference: on June 12th. I cut the long grass in this meadow at the music school. I remember thinking I would need to cut it again in a few weeks. Two months later that hasn't been necessary...

 

 

A cool, cloudy day! The lawns at the music school are straw coloured like everywhere. 

 It's incredible- this summer southern England has been hotter and drier than any other period since records began. Perhaps it was as hot and dry as this sometime in the Middle Ages or a thousand years ago but in the past few lifetimes no.