I managed to catch a dry spell last week and headed to the allotment to dig up the last of my root vegetables and plant some more field beans for green manure. A little robin followed me around, pouncing on any exposed worms. Fortunately my allotment drains well but still, I hope I haven’t done more harm than good stomping around on wet soil. On the radio hanging in the green house I listened to farmers unable to drill their wheat seed into waterlogged soil, or get heavy machinery onto their sodden fields to harvest potatoes. What a wet autumn it has been.
Despite the rain that continues to pour we have had some wonderful wintery skies here. Long shifts in my formative years means I have a peculiar fondness for the daily commute home in winter. While I still had hours left at work, I envied the trails of headlights making their way back to cosy homes accompanied by familiar voices on the radio. Now, as I head home on my nursing days, I love to catch glimpses of window-framed, back-lit domestic vignettes from the houses I pass, in the moments of growing dusk before the curtains are drawn. It makes me think of Little Grey Rabbit’s Christmas, where the animals peak in at a lit window and learn what a Christmas Party entails from the children inside the house. Of course I realise that the homes I glimpse will not always be capsules of domestic bliss, but just for a moment, looking in from the dark wet evening, they seem like glowing treasures.
