Plants blooming confused by our barmy weather

DAY after dark-cloudy day, it has chucked it down. Streams are surging down the hillsides and the first floods of winter have appeared in the Aire Valley.

That’s not unusual for this time of year but the temperature is. It has been running at 10 degrees above normal and plant-life thinks it’s spring.

There are buds on the potted magnolia, only days after the leaves fell off.

Pinkbells are blooming on the station path, marigolds on the allotment are flowering again. The rain keeps coming but the reservoirs are only slowly refilling and Yorkshire Water keeps the hosepipe ban it imposed in the summer.

Actually, there is a good case for banning them altogether. It beats me why people want to wash their car with a hosepipe rather than a bucket of hot water. And why use a sprinkler on the garden when a watering can will do the job? I tell this for free to the great and the good (and the not-so-good, who are probably in the majority) at the COP27 climate change summit in the Egyptian desert, where it doesn’t rain.

Last week in Sharm el Sheikh precipitation was zero most days, while daytime temperatures soared to the high 20s. Umbrellas were up to keep off the sun. Not here, bigwigs. It’s showery spring in the morning and wet autumn in the afternoon, with sunny spells just to confuse us – and the plants.

Still, I’d sooner be here than in the arid talking shop of COP27.

They must like it hot, which accounts for their choice of COP28 venue next year: the desert sands of Dubai, where the mercury hovers in the mid-30s.

It might have stopped raining here by then. I’ll let you know.