Rain, rain go away

Y’all, it is raining.  I mean, we knew that the UK got slightly more annual precipitation than Dallas does, but seriously.  It. Won’t. Stop.

In March, the UK Met Office (National Weather Service equivalent) declared the UK in a drought.  We thought it was a joke, it had been raining about 2-3 times a week as long as we’d lived here.  Our neighbors assured us that there really was less rain than normal and told us ways we could conserve water in our yard, even suggesting that I should use my left over cooking water to water plants.  (Daisy & Ginger thought this was a great idea too – pour the pasta flavored water outside for us to lick up!)

Then something got in the way of the drought.  Rain. And lots of it.  Flooding type rains.  Rainfall throughout the UK last month averaged 5.72 inches, twice what is typically measured each June.  Not since record-keeping began in 1910 has the UK experienced so much rain, according to the Met Office. The previous record was 5.36 inches from 2007.

The other thing that they measure (which just really makes me laugh) is the hours of sunshine in a month.  We’ve just been through the second dullest June on record with only 119.2 hours of sunshine. June 1987 continues to hold the record for the least amount of sunshine with 115.4 hours.

This combination of clouds and rain held the average temperatures to 54.1 degrees, also making this June the coolest since 1991.  It’s July 7th & I’m wearing a sweatshirt.  Our neighbors turned on their heat for part of June.  I refused – on principle, not because I wasn’t cold.  Believe me; I had the whole, layers & blankets thing going most of the month.

With the rain, things keep growing.

We have this massive hedge around the front & side of our house.  When we moved in, it was quite unruly, but slowly Adam & I have worked to tame it.  About three weeks ago, we dedicated an entire weekend to trimming the hedge.  In addition to being long & tall, it’s also wide, so Adam had to climb on the back wall of the property to reach some parts.

And now we need to do it all over again.