A poet whose work I rather enjoy is Wendy Cope.
She wrote a poem called 'English Weather'.
And as I stare out onto a rain-sodden Kent this morning, scuppered in my plan to go allotmenteering and instead determined that today I shall mostly be a writer, here is that very poem...
'January's grey and slushy,
February's chill and drear,
March is wild and wet and windy,
April seldom brings much cheer.
In May, a day or two of sunshine,
Three or four in June, perhaps.
July is usually filthy,
August skies are open taps.
In September things start dying,
Then comes cold October mist.
November we make plans to spend
The best part of December pissed.'
And even though it is raining and cold and dreary, I hope that the sun is shining somewhere, and that the 'somewhere' is South West France and the sun is following my friend Vera, who has a birthday today and really, really needs to get the rest of her mountainous pile of seed potatoes in the ground, and that Lester is in their kitchen making her a jolly scrummy birthday cake and not following in her potato-planting wake and covering her carefully tilled trenches with great, sodden clumps of mud!
Love the poem, but hope it's not quite as bleak as that. It must get better soon. And here was me imagining you out in your allotment in the sun, oh dear.
ReplyDeleteDiana
Well, yesterday we had about about two hours of watery sun so we went digging like mad things, but today I am afraid it is back to grimness and no digging because it has been raining all night and the earth is sodden. I've just been perusing the trees from my study window and they are still looking very bleak and bare. Very few leaves appearing and such a contrast to last year.
ReplyDeleteAh well; as you say, Diana, it must get better soon!
Oh thank you so much for your birthday wishes, Denise. However, we are awaiting the arrival of a storm so we have treacherous looking skies overhead at the moment. But it is warm, and we did 'do' sunshine yesterday, and we should be having some sunshine in the next few days according to Meteo, thus the Spud Project will continue, but only after I have had a nap because I can because it is my birfday!
ReplyDeleteThat poem is spot on.
ReplyDeleteHope your birfday was a good'un, Vera! X
ReplyDeleteJessica, I agree about the poem. When I read it this morning, I thought perhaps British weather has always been like this and my memories of warm and sunny springs and summers were based purely on my love of The Darling Buds of May!