Dampish

We have four big rainwater butts dotted about the property. I don't know how much they hold but it's a lot. I draw from them when I'm watering the garden. Three of them have now run dry- which brings home to me how little rain we've had this summer. I lifted the lid on one of them and there was several decades worth of muddy gloop at the bottom. I don't suppose they've been moved from their positions or swilled out since my father installed them. They're heavy; I'm not going to attempt it.

It's raining now. Well, just about. It's more like a dampness in the air. I was out in it, trimming the edge of a flowerbed- and hardly got wet. There's more on the way, we're told- maybe even some storms. I think it's what we need.

Real News

"I thought you didn't read newspapers," says Ailz.

"I don't," I say, "But this is important- not like the minutiae of Brexit or the empty speeches of Tory leadership contestants. It could be the most important thing to happen this year. A game-changer. A harbinger of cultural shift. A declaration and a sign that there are certain bloody awful things that have been going on for ever in our world which we will no longer tolerate."

Or, if I don't actually say it as neatly as that it's what I'm thinking.

"Well, don't gloat over it so..."

Am I gloating?

Is the Magnificat a gloat?

Perhaps...

What we were discussing was the up-coming trial of Jeffrey Epstein. Want to see the mighty put down from their seats and the humble and meek exalted? Well, pull up a pew.