Rain, rain, go away come again another day

OVID’S famous description of the gods unleashing a terrible flood in the poem, Metamorphoses, describes an underwater world.

Fishes dart among the tops of elm trees, wolves swim after sheep and ship anchors catch on meadow floors.

Food is so scarce the farmer “sails over his cornfields” and curved boats “graze the top of vineyards”. Gradually the inhabitants of this drowned world are gripped by “slow starvation”.

We’re not there yet after the wettest 18 months in England’s recorded history but farmers are growing concerned. Figures released this week examining crop yields after 1,695.9mm of rain fell between October 2022 and March 2024, found production is alarmingly down this winter.

Wheat has dropped 15 per cent since November, oilseed rape by 28 per cent and winter barley by 22 per cent.

Meanwhile the National Farmers’ Union has also warned of a “bleak attrition rate” among lambs born this spring due to low temperatures and continual rain.

At a local level I feel it too. The soil is so waterlogged on my allotment that I haven’t yet scattered a single seed. My cumulative harvest so far this spring is two measly spears of rhubarb. Certainly not enough to keep Ovid’s paddling wolf from the door.

Everything hinges on a turn in events and after the brief hiatus of spring these past few days, for many of us the dank weather returns over the weekend. While it will be brighter in the South, in the North and North West expect long spells of rain and below average temperatures.

In Metamorphoses, Jupiter dried things out with a simple wave of his trident and gradually the flood waters receded. Prayers then to whichever god can deliver us from this dismal version of spring. A proper dry spell to scatter my beetroot seeds, is all I ask.*

Azaleas at Compton Acres in Dorset have burst into life after the recent warm spell