For the first time in what seems like weeks and weeks and weeks it's actually raining. Proper dripping- from-the-gutters rain. We've had the odd light shower but not enough to stop the grass drying up until it's now just a miserable, dull brown, crispy covering of the earth, and never enough for me to need to use an umbrella. I've still got a beautiful Shanghai Tang brolly waiting to be used that P brought me back from Hong Kong in March.
And the smell, that fabulous dampening down of dust smell that only comes after a prolonged dry spell - it's so fresh and clean. If it wasn't raining quite so hard I'd open all the windows just to experience that smell.
I know many parts of the UK have had an incredibly wet and miserable July but here in Essex, although it has been grey skies for much of the time, there has been really no rain at all. So much so that last week at the car boot sale I noticed that the earth was beginning to crack wide open in the drought-like conditions. Having lived in Essex for a few years now I can certainly see why it has the reputation of being the driest county in England.
A fabulously violent burst of thunder and lightening has just started up too. Brilliant, I love a good thunder storm!
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