The big dry

All we know is that here at Lush Places, our pasture and gardens are gasping. The pasture is the worry. The garden is a luxury but if you move to the country to buy a garden, the lack of rain is distressing.

- Michele Hewitson

A good barometer: the hardy hydrangeas. They are drooping almost every day. That looks like a drought to me. I fight with the bloody hoses every day. I hate hoses. They are like snakes. They may not be venomous, but they have venomous intent. They twist and trip you and trick you. They are bastards.

Luckily, the lambs are looking amazingly plump. I went out in the night and saw them chasing each other around the paddock, so they must be happy and full of vigour. They are eating the early fallen poplar leaves.

The oaks are dropping their acorns too green - and the sheep eat those too. And there are the wizened apples, which early on showed so much promise for a bountiful crop but have given up growing because of the lack of water. A sheep takes its snacks where a sheep can find them.

We haven't had proper rain since before Christmas. Miles, the sheep farmer, who unlike most sheep farmers (who talk in straight lines, as in: "Gidday. Dry as, innit?") is given to flights of whimsy. He said: "Could you do a rain dance?"