St Swithun's Day

A removal van turned up this morning. I thought it must have got lost, at first, and taken a wrong turning down our lane, then I remembered our neighbours, Jane and Guy were leaving today. Guy has been the rector here for nearly 27 years. They’re not going very far – to Draycott Cerne, Kilvert country proper – but I’m sure it’ll be a wrench. It seems the Church has rules about clergy – once they’re retired, they have to move at least two miles from the benefice. It doesn’t seem to matter that the village isn’t getting another rector; at least not one who lives here – rules is rules. It’ll be odd not having them around. I know that life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday, but sometimes I wish it would tarry just a bit.

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The allotments are looking particularly lovely this year. More plots than ever are being cultivated, the clover’s up and everything is growing like crazy. I think the prize for the prettiest allotment at the moment goes to Sarah, in the corner, with her waving hedge of cornflowers and Californian poppies – clouds of cobalt, red and gold – and a tubby little wigwam of sweet peas. Clare’s at the top – at least I think it’s Clare’s – is lovely, too, with its gold nasturtiums and scrambling runner beans in scarlet flower. And I do like Janice’s bunting. Funny how it’s the girls I’ve picked out. Philip’s very good at dahlias, usually but I think the slugs got to them this year.














There’s been another attack of Asbo animals. Bernard had had a mole, which he’s been trying to divert towards Trevor’s plot with an ingenious plastic-bottle device, but the mole’s having none of it. Up he keeps popping between Bernard’s cabbages. Meanwhile, Dick came down to his plot one morning to find a grass snake wedged in one of his wire cloches. The snake seems to have spotted a toad among the lettuces, dived in through one of the holes in the chicken wire, guzzled the toad, only to find it was now trapped by dint of a large, toad-shaped bulge too large to slither back through the chicken wire. Dick somehow managed to squeeze the toad out of the snake’s mouth and freed the snake, who took one look at what was left of his breakfast before slithering off. I'm not at all sure I'd have fancied any breakfast after that, either.

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St Swithun was a champion of the poor and needy who lived in ninth-century Wessex.

I wonder whether it’s going to rain today?