Lotusland, Mad Hatters, The Storm – Early Summer 2023

What will we remember from June 2023 in 20 years? Will we still be around, or even have the power of recall? Will I remember the sublime morning spent up in the shepherd’s hut? The timer set. The trickling sand forgotten as I absorb this scene.

The words are there but penned too soon to reference the tragedy which followed a day later. When in a moment of stupidity and poor timing one of our two ram lambs jumped the low fence in search of foliage, got stuck in the mud that passes for what’s left of our pond in this drought-affected land, and drowned. Perhaps we even heard his desperate fleeting bleats as we sat on the terrace enjoying a balmy morning coffee, as we have for most of the last two months. Or maybe it was just his sibling’s anxious call as he sought reassurance now that his brother was gone. The sound was so unusual I’d looked down into the distant field and watched a lamb anxiously walking along the stream’s bank, apparently bleating. We found him barely an hour later, after a regular walk and number count. Memories of advent colours from December 2016 – a different season, but the same sinking feeling.

The same slow, sinking end:

Mulled wine, mince pies, and Aberglasney’s bustling fair

Are soon forgotten as I scour the field,

Recount, and listen, again. One short, and ominously

Silent as the settled flock, dispersed, fleck the scene

In black and white. Stark colours as

Foreboding settles, stomach deep.

Help is summoned.

Fiona found her, hidden behind some rushes…

Not what we’d anticipated when we planned a simple wildlife pond all those years ago, and our only 2 older sheep fatalities to date have happened in this way.

Early summer has certainly been a time when our normal life has been upended by the weather. The watering has been a constant necessary chore simply to keep some plants alive. However, I think we could get quite used to this novelty of constant long days of warm sunshine. Windows and doors flung open to air the house in a way we’ve never managed before in all our time living here, with temperatures more benignly stuck in the mid-twenties at most.

Green Drake Mayflies, and Peppered, and Grey Dagger moths resting on whitewashed walls

Breakfast, lunch and supper have all been taken outside with even the midges largely absent because of the lack of ground moisture. And clouds which largely came and went with no threat or should that be promise of rain. Just delights of light and form.

But do anything with the ground, and any soil moisture, that (usually) guaranteed certainty for living and gardening here, has simply gone – even inches down. Potatoes are small and have had to be chiselled from some of the poorest sub-soil of one of our deep beds before the root-trained leeks could replace them.

I’m sure it’ll be a time I remember through music, possibly the true opium of many people in today’s fractured world.

Discoveries, re-discoveries, and most appropriate of all for me, in reflecting these often sultry and frankly foreign conditions, has been Lotusland. A short piano piece I discovered recently by a British composer, Cyril Scott who I’d never even heard of before. This short, yet contemporary jazz-like piece was composed in 1905 and on the YouTube below is played beautifully by another exiled Georgian pianist, Nino Gvetadze, now based in the Netherlands.

The exotic music, the emotional charge, the wonderful clarity of recorded sound and the classy shifting focus and roving eye of the cameras and editors, capture the anachronistic placing of this performance of music from another time and place, in the centre of a modern city. A refuge from the world outside.

It sums up this dreamy summer spent in this place, as what looks like being a record-breaking, warm June drifts into the memory, along with the preceding dreamy May and grey skies and drizzle restore our more usual way of life, and sense of equilibrium.

Only a few pieces of music can instantly take me back to a specific time and place with clarity.

“Oh Yeah” by Roxy Music is forever linked with the summer of 1980, the year after we married, and we cut our teeth on DIY, decorating the small bathroom of my Father’s cottage just North of Lampeter with pink floral vinyl wallpaper and small square pink Pilkington Crystal tiles. How of the time, with this wistful song often playing on the radio as we worked away.

Curiously two of the other seared memory moments are linked to songs by Elton John. The second of these was the first time I heard ‘Sacrifice’ played on the car radio as I sat waiting to pick up our older son from his evening Beavers group meeting outside St Ambrose Church in Bristol. I was riveted with both the melody and classy arrangement, though struggled to catch all the lyrics, even then. In our TV-less existence since 1986, it’s only now as I’ve watched the official, great video for the song for the first time, that the gaps in lyrics and my understanding have all been clarified!

From much earlier, I’m instantly taken back to the cramped room that housed the Turk’s Head Press at Adam’s Grammar School, at the mention of ‘Bennie and the Jets’, or ‘Candle in the Wind’, but more specifically ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’. In occasional lunch breaks, several young lads squeezed into this dedicated small space to pick out letters from trays of lead type text, back in the early 1970s. “Techmatic Ted” (remember those), as he was widely known, an older lad, with well-developed stubble had a typical small cassette recorder (remember those), on which “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” (GYBR) played for much of the time we were setting up the type and running off tickets and posters for various school events.

By a curious piece of synchronicity, Elton John played the final set at Glastonbury festival this last weekend in temperatures in the thirties, and what an extraordinary performance by an artist of 76, with the same ageing guitarist, Davey Johnstone, who played on his ’70s albums beside him.

‘Rocket Man’ was actually released a year earlier than GYBR, as a single from the Honky Chateau LP, both this and GYBR, being recorded at great speed at Château d’Hérouville, Hérouville, France.

Whilst this had been billed as Elton’s last live UK performance, I wonder if he’ll follow in polymath Cyril Scott’s footsteps and keep writing and performing until he drops. Scott certainly kept writing music, poetry and books on several subjects including alternative medicine, occultism, morals, politics, and ethics, completing his last works just before he died aged 93 in 1969.

In a quote from his son, which is included in the notes to the excellent CD ‘Visions’ by Nino Gvetadze a recent CD which showcases some of Scott’s huge output of solo piano music:

“In 1977 Sir Thomas Armstrong, said in a BBC Radio 3 broadcast:

‘Cyril Scott didn’t care whether his music was performed or published; he would have liked to have it performed, he would have liked to have it published, he was glad when it was performed. But he went on writing knowing there was little chance of a symphony finding performance. He went on writing day after day. He was a marvellous example of the dedicated creative artist.’

Not a bad quote to reflect on for anyone trying to do anything creative – be that writing, composing, painting, or dare I even say creating and minding a garden space. Just keep going and hopefully enjoy the doing, if you feel moved to.

And if you can share it with others, so much the better.

Before leaving this musically heavy introduction, one of the track listings on Elton’s Honky Chateau album was also new to me, and well worth a listen in this live recording by a much younger Elton. It’s rather appropriate since it leads me to the Mad Hatters Tea Party which we hosted here in early June. (And do note Bernie Taupin’s lyric that “Now I know that rose trees never grow in New York City.” 29 years after seeing them at Sheldon Manor, we now have rose trees growing wonderfully here, and it was marvellous that over a week in late June, we had international visitors from Australia, America, and Germany, if not the UK, to see them at their peak):

I’d had the idea for the first Mad Hatter’s tea party which we held at Aberglasney during my short tenure as Cothigardeners’ chair a few years ago. Elena, the current chair thought it worth bringing back the event this summer and we offered to host it here. We switched dates fairly late on, and so took advantage of the fabulous early June weather. Our group of members gamely entered into the spirit of the occasion, and whilst Sandy won the orchid for best hat, for her “wild and tame” offering, and thus scooped the Phalaenopsis prize, Gordon had us in stitches with his battery-powered chicken, which he keeps at home to bring out when his grandchildren visit. He’d repurposed it for the occasion by tying it onto his hat. Complete with sounds and actions both Gordon and funky chicken had a wonderful range of moves and expressions. We all enjoyed the good weather, company and shared tea, sandwiches and cakes and one sensed that everyone has benefited hugely from this fabulous run of weather. I always thought my Aussie locum vets were more laid back because of the influence of their sunny climate.

After they’d all left, I noticed that the doors and windows to the shepherd’s hut were still open, so wandered up after supper to close them, and spotted the very rare sight of a healthy-looking hedgehog wandering in golden light through the meadow grass. I guess that hedgehogs have been struggling both for food and water these past weeks, and after seeing it in the same area of the garden a few days later, looking less active, we left a low container filled with water for it.

I was fascinated by how unperturbed by my presence it was, although, at one point, it paused, sniffed the air, turning its head slowly through 90 degrees, until its nose (and eyes) were pointing directly at me. Briefly froze, perhaps we exchanged thoughts, and then the hog decided to wander onto our mown path and quietly amble away.

There’s an interesting piece on hedgehog sensory perceptions which you can read here, which confirms that their vision is poor and probably of only limited use to them in their normally nocturnal existence.

Despite the lack of rain for weeks, and the need to water, I’ve refrained from dipping into our IBC bulk tank reserve water supply, saving this for the moment if, or when, the tap runs dry.

However, I thought I should try to get some sort of idea of just how much water I was using in the garden in my hour-plus, twice-a-day sessions with the hose. Either directly sprayed onto plants, or after emptying filled watering cans to reach the most distant parts of the garden. After filling a 10-litre can with the hose set on the most commonly used “jet” setting, the volume equated to about 600 litres an hour. So I was using around 1200 litres a day. Way more than I’d thought, and way more than our shared daily shallow baths and other household water usage amounts to, with frugality having been the order of the day for weeks.

I’ve even worried that at some point we might be impacting our stream flow which has been very low now for months. Since ours is just one of many spring sources in the Afon Melinddw’s upper catchment, this probably isn’t that likely, and currently our trout/salmonid parr and larger fish seem to be coping surprisingly well in decent numbers, in holding pools along its course. (Let alone whether I’m impacting on shifting the world’s polar axis and tilt as outlined in work published this month after scientists have studied the impact of water extraction from ground aquifers in recent decades).

But scaled up to the quantity of water applied per square metre of the garden, this use of water barely amounts to 1 mm per square metre, every couple of days, albeit in a selective and focused application.

No wonder we scanned the forecasts for any hint of rain which would alleviate the situation, and give me a night or morning respite from the watering chores. In the end, the drought ended, at least temporarily with a benign 4 mm of rain, followed 36 hours later by a storm as severe as any we’ve experienced here, and entirely missed by all our forecasts. We watched the grey clouds gather to the East, and gradually drift towards us from the distant hills, still having no inkling of what was to come. The first drops of rain began to fall and shortly afterwards the first rumbles of thunder rolled around the valley. Fortunately, I’d remembered to put out all our available buckets, dustbins and wheelbarrow beneath the drip line of our gutter-less barns, in advance of the rain arriving. I soon had to retreat inside as the intensity of the rain increased and whilst filming from the upstairs window, a linear, low flash of lightning (which took out our phone’s base unit), was followed by a thunderclap so loud, my steady hold on the camera out of the bedroom window was shocked and shaken. In the end, 22.5 mm of rain fell in just 40 minutes. Onto every bit of the garden – which contrasts very dramatically with the trivial impact I’d had over weeks of manual watering with cans and hose.

Amazingly, however, after the clouds cleared and the sun came out the following day, the ground showed no obvious signs of the deluge and still seemed parched.

What had happened though was dramatic damage to our access track, despite our rain run-off channels, as well as significant stone shifting in our stream. In the end, the lack of weather warning of the severity of the downpour meant I hadn’t got around to clearing the chevron-shaped reverse sleeping policeman we’ve installed on our track, which feeds into the central channel, to limit erosion from just such rare events. Although little stone seems to have been lost completely, much of it has been re-arranged, so a lengthy job of track restoration is now underway. As an illustration, this section above between chevrons with damper-looking gravel took us both one session and 4 earth scoops of stone to lay down – about as much as we can manage before the morning’s heat, humidity and horseflies meant a break and shift of task.

Haymaking, strangely, hasn’t been a simple task this year, since although there’s been so much dry weather, much of it has come before there’s been any forage growth worth cutting. We’ve been very fortunate to have some help this year, which might herald an interesting new phase in how we manage the garden and land – more in due course – but for now many thanks to Andy, Debs and John, for coming over and getting stuck into the task despite mid-twenties C heat and often incredibly high humidity.

We were able to supply Andy with some green hay for an interesting project at his new home near the coast, as well as some Crocus tommasinianus seed, and Tenby daffodil, Narcissus obvallaris, bulbs.

The humidity around haymaking is something I haven’t thought about much before, but it’s clearly a factor along with sunshine and the timing of any direct insolation, cloud cover, day and night temperatures, and finally wind speeds which all hugely impact how quickly hay can be made. At least our fields now have a crop which is much lighter and less leafy than in the early years, when trying to manually turn heavy, lush leafy grass was a task which would now be beyond us. So 36 or more usually 48-hour hay is still an option if one turns the grass sufficiently often.

Apparently, typical humidity for Wales lies between 70 and 90% and is normally highest in the winter months. This year, before the storm, I registered humidity as low as 45 % outside – brilliant for haymaking of course, with the additional factor that at such low levels, the chances of dew forming overnight diminish dramatically.

As illustrated by the graph, (and the roof of the car) – in spite of the low humidity, the temperature had dropped from about 20 degrees C in the evening to just 7 in the morning, so a slight dew had still formed by 7.00am.

Heavy dew, even on a sunny hot day is the bane of a haymaker’s life, particularly as we pass mid-summer, since all that moisture has to evaporate before the hay will begin to dry out any more. And such high humidity makes the physical work involved extremely sweat-inducing.

It may have stayed very warm overnight, on this occasion, but with humidity of 90%, it was still likely that dew would form, which indeed it did.

We’ve probably already cropped 60% of what we need for next winter, but the upside of this year’s fits and starts hay making has been we’ve had plenty of time and glorious weather to enjoy the hay meadows as they’ve taken another leap forwards.

It made me reflect on whether the joy of experiencing a wildflower meadow in mid-summer comes from the overall view or the detail. The reverse, indeed, of “not being able to see the wood for the trees”. In many ways, although the overall scenes are glorious, it’s when one focuses on the number and diversity of small flowers that the richness and magnitude of the ecosystem hit home. Which is why it took me nearly an hour to walk around the meadow the other morning, at 6.00am, soaking it all up.

The yellow rattle has finally appeared almost ubiquitously in the upper meadow, but in many areas is now waning in quantity. In contrast, the many different forms of eyebright have had a fantastic year, carpeting the sward’s lower level with their tiny, appealing flowers in shades of white and violet.

Orchid numbers have exceeded 500, and are now appearing in the lower meadow, and pignut and pick clover are becoming much more widespread. As I write this up, betony is more common this year, and the first Devil’sbit scabious flowers are already open in the lower and upper meadows. All this hints at an unusual and worrying trend for so many flowers to be open now, weeks before one would expect them to be. The brambles are already beginning to go over, and the Rosebay willowherb is picking up steam. What is going to be left as nectar and pollen options for insects in the latter half of the year? It is possibly not an issue for the honey bees if their stores are brimming, but it could be an issue for later butterflies.