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. 

 

 Tonal eclipse of the sun - as seen at Knocking Hoe - projected through a kitchen colander onto a sheet of white card. I didn't want to buy a pair of special glasses (or go blind) so this simple variation on a pinhole camera did the job. In fact we frequently get brief glimpses of sun without going blind (not to mention admiring sunrises and sunsets). Nonetheless looking straight at the sun high in the sky for seconds or longer is clearly a no-no.

 My old buddy Gordon suggested we take a trip out to the Hoe. Good call- the primal humps of the Hoe speak to my inner pagan. We picked a spot looking over the patchwork fields of Bedfordshire. The landscape was golden brown, sky blue, electric heat.

 As the eclipse began to happen an eerie twilight spread across the land, the air became cool, the rays of the sun ceased to burn the skin. A different twilight to sunset, the shadows didn't lengthen as when the sun goes down.

 I have to report we didn't see the sun go dark with a bright corona. Throughout it seemed to remain a luminous circle despite the dimming of the ambient light. That is intriguing because every news report shows the image of a dark sun. Perhaps it's fake news like those stories we landed on the moon and the earth is round...  (just kidding)

 Then again it was a partial eclipse when seen from England; possibly sufficient rays were illuminating the haze that the sun still looked full? Anyway the merest of squints, the colander and the lens of the camera saw a shining sun. Maybe it would have looked different through those special glasses?

 Actually my particular purpose for this quest was to experience the change of light and atmosphere here on planet Earth and the effect was indeed uncanny. 

 

 Three drought/heatwave summers in the past five years bears out the contention that the Mediterranean climate will move northwards to the south of England. The epithet 'hardy' is traditionally applied to plants that can survive freezing temperatures as low as minus ten or twenty. Such winters were part of my childhood but rarely a consideration since then. Drought hardy becomes equally important these days 

 Certainly I will only be planting species noted for their drought tolerance be they native or naturalised. That doesn't mean we need to be growing cactuses in the Home Counties (yet?!) but there's no point assuming we can rely on summer rain or even have enough water to avoid hosepipe bans. Nonetheless they will need to be plants that can cope with cold and damp because that will still happen.