here comes the flood

The unseasonally warm Spring weather seemed to lead to a hive of activity in our tiny garden.  We've planted lots of new things to start growing - mostly herbs at this stage, tomatoes will need another week or two before they get started.  A few barbecues last week too.  The weekend started with a feeling that school was still a long way off. Unfortunately, tomorrow we go back.

Still, Easter Monday, let's not spoil it. Our son needed to gather some landscape photos for his Photography A Level exam so Mrs Dave and I took him up the coast to find some cliffs.  Okay, Suffolk only has a few small ones but we do have cliffs! Here's a still from my Flip to prove it.  This is looking down on Dunwich shore - there's even a warning sign to beware of the cliff. Dunwich sits in the shadow of Sizewell and is well known for the disappearance of most of the city - as it was a few hundred years ago - under the sea. Sometimes the church bells are heard.  All very ghostly and gothic.  We went to look at the Greyfriars Abbey I posted about last year. Two horses seemed to be rolling about on their backs which was a bit bizarre. Anyway, a lazy meal of fish and chips at The Horse and Groom at Wrentham with a couple of glasses of Adnams bitter all went down very well.

We also went to Benacre Nature Reserve for more cliffs.  They're really small ones.  But the meeting of marshland, woodland and sea shore was fantastic. This photo doesn't do it justice - that's Southwold in the distance. I was watching a pair of grebes on a feeding frenzy whilst a Marsh Harrier circled lazily high overhead.  A flock of Greylag Geese were having a party in a nearby field.  There was a general feeling of "All's right with the World" today.

All good things come to an end, I suppose.  Back to school, then. Still, three days this week, four next week.  So we're building up to a full week.  Lots of civilians have taken the next three days off as it means they get eleven days of holiday for only three days booked - what a bonus!  With the weather being so good and the lack of work for the last few weeks, it's been the best April for years! Yesterday's Independent on Sunday told us that this March has been the driest in England and Wales (obviously not Scotland!) for the last 50 years, and April has been even drier.  With only 16% of its average rainfall, the rivers are going to be quite dry.  Hosepipe bans will obviously be upon us soon.  However, we were also informed that the last warmest April ever in 2007 gave an average maximum temperature of 16.3C in England.  And then came the rains of May. And June. And then the floods of July. With three times the amount of rain as normal, some places were getting lashed with Apocalyptic downfalls.  History, of course, does not have to repeat itself. 

Keep watching the skies.