Welcome to my blog
which is waiting for rain. I’ve waited for rain in Australia in the past and in
India. In those places, the waiting is excited, sometimes even desperate, for
the dry could have lasted for months. I remember living with the dope-growers
in Oz. Being guerrilla growers avoiding the attention of the New South Wales
police, these farmers had their plants concealed in various parts of the
national forest where, it was hoped, neither the park rangers, nor the
helicopters, nor the rippers, could find them.
Finding these unfindable spots would mean a couple
of hours drive into the forest, followed by a long walk carrying bits and
pieces, such as plant food and materials to make a cage for the plants to
protect them from curious predators, possums for example, attracted by the
outstanding greenness of the mollycoddled marijuana. Sometimes an ingenuous
grower would find a way of running a pipe to the nearest creek in order to
supply a regular watering for his/her loved ones but this was rare and
unreliable so in times of drought it would be necessary to load up with
enormous plastic cans of water and lumber them on the back through the forest
to the secret spot. Apart from being an impossible thing to do discretely, it
was physically exhausting and, for me, quite scary because it was no fun to
stagger through undergrowth replete with venomous snakes, lethal spiders and
all sorts of biters and stingers. Imagine, therefore, the sigh of relief when
the rains came and this challenging, though rewarding, work could be delegated
back to nature for a day or two.
Of course with nature
being nature, the chances are that before long we’d find ourselves worrying
that if the rain didn’t stop the plants would be washed away.
The rain I’m waiting for won’t come as a
relief to anyone, unless of course, it doesn’t really arrive. We’ve had more
rain this year than ever before, so much so then when it isn’t raining it seems
abnormal, as if something is missing.
It wasn’t raining when
I set off early on Thursday morning to visit a friend in Derbyshire and do a
little business with him. It is a 360 mile round trip. The radio was warning of
storms to come, of high winds and rain. I thought about postponing the journey
but I was quite excited at earning a little money for a change and keen to
spend a day with some sense of purpose. It was a slowish drive up the M5,
mainly because of a lorry which, I saw, had caught fire and melted. Reaching
Derby, I spent a pleasant couple of hours swapping news and shooting the
breeze, before setting off back to Bristol, by which time the winds had picked
up and debris was blowing about on the motorway; at one point I was surprised
by a small tree branch clunking against my windscreen.
Twenty miles from
Bristol, the rain began. It was already dark - the light goes before 4pm at this
time of year - but it became black, despite the motorway’s illumination. Then
the rain became torrential and all the traffic slowed, almost to a stand-still.
An hour later, I crawled into the city where I was quite amazed to discover
familiar streets with puddles turning into mini-lakes. Undeterred I set off
towards Glastonbury.
It was like driving
through a thirty mile ford that every now and then would turn into an angry
river. The biggest lake was attended by fire engines and a handful of police.
In the middle of the lake, two cars were drowning. As my car had already almost
stalled because of the wetness, I hesitated at the edge of the lake and thought
about turning around. A policeman approached me and I was about to wind the
window down to ask his advice when I realized the car might smell of weed, so
instead I plunged forward. It was a close run thing, not helped by a wave
engendered by a four by four sweeping past me.
As a drove on, I was
reminded of a time in Burma when the car I was in came to a similar flood and
was taken through a river by a tractor. Once through this time, I was into the
unlit countryside across the top of the Mendip Hills. The problem there was it
was impossible to judge either the depth or the strength of the running water. I
began to worry about flash-floods which by their nature are unpredictable. (In
fact, later in the night a man died in one of the villages I passed through
when his car was swept down a temporary river and then trapped under a bridge.)
It took me three hours
to get to Glastonbury. Immediately I called round to visit someone and quickly
realized I was exceptionally excited and contented. I had loved the adventure
of the day and delighted to discover once again that you never know when you
might be surprised by joy.
This morning all the
fields around are again flooded. I can stand on Leg of Mutton Road and see the
isle that is Glastonbury. I want the rain to come, to flood it more, and then
I’m going out for a walk. Again the radio is telling us to fear the rain - but
it hasn’t come. So I’ll keep waiting.
---
The rain was forecast
to start at 4am - the same time, it so happens, that the test cricket between
England and India began in Mumbai. So I was up early.
My goal this week was
to get Sad Sam on to Amazon kindle. I spent a few days failing to design a
jacket and in the end commissioned someone on Fiver (five dollars) to do it. I
don’t particularly like what he has done but it could be good enough for the
now. It was only when I came to upload it that I noticed this inhibition from
Amazon:
Pornography
We don't
accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts.
Offensive
Content
What we deem
offensive is probably about what you would expect.
I guess this disqualifies poor Sam and this is a shame
because amazon kindle seems essential for success as an ebook. I could argue
that the book isn’t pornographic and the verbal depictions of graphic sex are
not offensive. Me against Amazon. I wonder who would win.
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