England’s green and pleasant land: also available in brown

The Yorkshire Dales, summer 2018 style.

Followers of this blog will be familiar with images of verdant meadows, of rolling green hillsides studded with sheep, of grasses swaying in the breeze – all illustrating our walks round Yorkshire.

Today though, I’m going to show you the same Yorkshire scenery, as it looks after a fortnight’s heatwave: the kind of consistently sunny weather that I can’t remember enjoying since I was pregnant with my son, back in 1976. We’re not used to this. Meals are taken in the garden. Our yoga class happens on the cricket pitch. Evenings are spent out of doors.

And the grumbling has started. ‘Eeh, it’s too ‘ot. It’s not natural, is it? I’ve ‘ad enough, me’ Not me. I’ll gladly lug watering cans about to water the flowerpots round the door. Though it might keep everyone happy if we could have nightly rainfall, strictly between the hours of 11.00 p.m. and 5.00 a.m.

A bridge over the diminished River Wharfe.
Luckily the trees are still coping without rain.
Not a recently harvested crop. Just dry grass.
They cut the hay a few weeks ago. No more grass has grown since then.
That cloud seemed to promise rain. None materialised.
More parched Daleside scenery.

Click on any image to view full size.

Author: margaret21

I'm retired and live in North Yorkshire, where I walk , write, volunteer and travel as often as I can.

27 thoughts on “England’s green and pleasant land: also available in brown”

  1. Very dry everywhere here in Northumberland.
    It’s all about the context. The last two summers we were in France were – to us – horrific with temperatures staying above 36C for weeks. So this (21/26C) seems pleasant in comparison!

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  2. Exactly. This ‘heatwave’ was completely average for us when we lived in southern France, and we didn’t even break sweat. I must say, I’m loving this……

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  3. The Cotswolds are tinder dry too x Thank goodness for the local stream! Although it is running dry at least my little dog can walk in it instead of n hot pavements.

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  4. We went across to the Lake District last week and it was brown there too! Not often like that of course, with its high average rainfall.

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  5. I have to agree- I just watched Rafa. 🙂 🙂 I can’t bring myself to complain about the heat either, Margaret, though it will be a little cooler here on the coast. Went for a lovely stroll on the beach this morning.

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  7. And here, a mere 3700 miles away, it is wetter than ever at home where we are almost at our annual rainfall as of 6/30. And up at the lake, there was a warning for forrest fire weather. I love sunny summer days, but an occasional day of rainfall is always welcome. Enjoy the sunshine.

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  12. Ah, the rain may never fall ’til after sundown . . . in your Camelot! It’s been beastly hot here and we haven’t had our usual rain either. I’m looking forward to autumn, personally.

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    1. Oh dear! And your compatriot Clay comments elsewhere on this page that he’s enduring an unremitting diet of rain. What IS happening to weather these days? And Kerry …. ‘beastly’, and ‘hot’ don’t belong in the same sentence … ever. Just saying ….

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  13. Continental style pots planted with pelargoniums are doing very well though, especially the those with white and a red cross. 😉 However, I hear some of the tube lines aren’t functioning properly in the heat. 😊 Win some, lose some!😊

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  15. Hot in the Corrèze but on the whole still green. Our ‘lawn’ is mainly moss and Mortimer loves rolling on that. We’ve dropped off the 30 plus degrees and in the mid to late twenties for which I’m very grateful 🙂

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  16. It’s hot here also but being a hot-a- holic I’m not complaining, the vegetable garden is tho’. We’ve got fab French beans but awful potatoes and soft fruit which all goes to show that like farmers gardeners are never happy! I also was pregnant with no. 1 in ‘76 and it was very humid in Bristol, I have distinct memories of problems with potatoes then as well. All I can say is enjoy it while it lasts.

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  18. You just repeated my daily (nightly) prayer for rain between 11pm-5am…. 🙂
    I can’t call my garden’s prairie lawn any longer, it’s called the ‘burning field’ or the hay prairie. We still have the right to water (and of course it’s VERY expensive water, clean and coming from the city’s reservoirs….) but this might stop at any minute now. It’s really desperate a situation. Not only hasn’t it rained for weeks here but we have strong winds which dry out any existing life of our gardens even faster than the sun does.
    And YES, we all human beings, are fully responsible for it….

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