STAIR RODS, SLUGS AND SNAILS

The gutters cannot cope and a waterfall splashes down outside the kitchen.

It is summer!

Well is it?

Midsummer's day is clearly in the wrong place - yes, it is the summer solstice, but midsummer - never.

Here in the UK summer is June, July and August, autumn is September and October, spring is April and May and winter is November, December, January, February and March! At least it feels like that - and then you have a week with temperatures in the seventies in March and we all freeze in May.

Of course, if the British had no variations in weather we would have little to discuss.

The picture of the garden and house is taken from the far south western corner by the white birches. The stream winds across the foreground, (the rain was so heavy yesterday the stream lifted one of the wooden bridges (really planks) into the air), the wood is to the left and the ponds and boggy areas off to the right.

The broom on the banking below the house has been dramatic. However it does have the habit of scattering its offspring about - not always quite what I want.

So to the slimy chewers.

I have planted out more white Cosmos and each has its own bottomless plastic pot with a band of copper tape.

I have done the same with the last pumpkin but I have never seen such fat snails. Last winter was not hard and cold enough so much mollusc life overwintered.

A jay has just landed on a post outside the study window - British parrots? They are so twitchy and timid - unlike the grey squirrels.

At least with all the rain the rhubarb does not need watering.

The white lilac has gone brown - deadheading in order.

We are seeing many young birds now, bullying their parents - is anything new?

Now I have a Carrion crow on the shed roof.

I hope the swallow and house martin young have managed to ride out the rain as the adult birds find it difficult to feed their young in such conditions.

It is time to venture out and sow another lot of beetroot - I think the pigeons got the last lot. They are great fat birds waddling about under the feeders. No wonder the peregrine takes them for a slap up meal - to eat, I mean, not takes them out to lunch . . . . you know what I mean.