Rain

Unexpectedly and without prediction, it rained last night. For someone like myself, living in a area dealing with drought, and with all these thirsty hydrangea bushes on my conscience, it was a wonderful gift. It was also that kind of rain that makes you want to wake up, fluff the pillows behind your back and read by candlelight. You know the kind.... distant thunder, occasional room-illuminating lightning and hard, steady drumbeats of raindrops on your bedroom roof. So that’s what I did, and I finished a wonderful book, The House At Riverton, by Kate Morton. Perfect choice for such a night. Then I just lay there and listened, relishing the sound. I was reminded of this quote from Gertrude Jekyll whose garden had also been enduring a drought. It seemed to suit perfectly.

“.....But last evening there was a gathering of grey cloud, and this ground of grey was traversed by those fast-travelling wisps of fleecy blackness that are the surest promise of near rain the sky can show. By bedtime rain was falling steadily, and in the night it came down on the roof in a small thunder of steady downpour. It was pleasant to wake from time to time and hear the welcome sound, and to know that the clogged leaves were being washed clean, and that their pores were once more drawing in the breath of life, and that the thirsty roots were drinking their fill. And now, in the morning, how good it is to see the brilliant light of the blessed summer day, always brightest after rain, and to see how every tree and plant is full of new life and abounding gladness; and to feel one’s own thankfulness of heart, and that it is good to live, and all the more good to live in a garden.”
Gertrude Jekyll 1843-1932
from a 1900 issue of Home and Garden.