Waterous

The Virginia Creeper on our fence is exactly this colour - this one on a church in Aberdeen.

Rydal Water, The Lakes, on a damp, warm day last week.

 Scottish greenhouse tomatoes - grown by an amazing 96 year old great grandfather.

Kale and cabbage fields outside Budleigh Salterton where we were walking

 on our 27th Wedding Anniversary last week, picking blackberries.

Today I de-frost the freezer. As I arrange old tea towels on the floor to catch the drips and flying ice I remember the old red and white checked hand towel my mother used when she defrosted her freezer ....and the last time I helped her do it, kneeling on the beige carpet in the corner of their dining room in Pangbourne, chipping away at the rock hard ice, melded to the sides like white glue.

I don't throw much away - half a loaf of paysanne bread and some tubs of beef stock which I must have kept from when I used to pot-roast an organic joint for my father. I'd slice it up into little portions, put it into round plastic containers and take it to him for his sandwich suppers. I also chuck out a box of Sainsbury's ready roll puff pastry which I remember is disgusting compared to the Jus Rol all butter version.

I find a bag of dark red elderberries from the allotment last year and boil them up to make a cordial.  The label on the quorn Mushroom Burgers says March 2010 but I risk it and cook them for supper with green beans and a fresh tomato sauce which I make with last week's market tomatoes as they are beginning to go manky. There is also a small plastic box of crumble mix with no date on it so I add some dessicated coconut, sprinkle it over the apples I stewed last week and bake it for pudding. Unexpected freezer bounty.

It's raining again - gentle, persistent dripping on the windows. It's  been like this for days -  raining on and off. And even when it's not actually raining the air is so full of moisture it feels like a water balloon that could burst any minute. But it's incredibly warm at the same time and we come back sweating from  a walk.

 My husband has a new word for this weather - waterous.    A perfect description for how I feel most  days now.