It's so wet that...

You can only feel great sympathy for the people around the country suffering from the flooding at the moment. Water is such a precious thing, but it can also be an unpredictable and powerful force.

In my garden down in coastal Sussex, the last month has just seemed relentlessly wet, although I'm sure our rain totals here are nothing compared to what people have been facing further north.

I do keep a rain gauge, which I take a reading from each day, and since the beginning of October we have had 243mm of rain, almost 10 inches. In the same period last year, we had just 98mm, or just 40% of this year's totals. That's how variable our weather can be, and it is raining as I type. (You can see in the background that my pond is well and truly full!).

Of course, the amount of rain we get then has a significant effect on the garden. My new area of wildflower meadow (in the foreground below), which I diligently dug and weeded and raked repeatedly in early autumn and then sowed, is now something of a quagmire, and I suspect that many of the seeds and tiny seedlings just won't cope.

Meanwhile, the Teasel heads which I'd left standing for the Goldfinches have got so sodden that the seeds have actually germinated within the seedheads. They won't be much use for the birds anymore.

And it is so wet that I can't do any weeding (maybe you're thinking that's a blessing in your garden!)

But for all the challenges it brings, in a garden setting water is such a life bringer. From Frogs and Toads to dragonflies and bathing birds, and even to the glorious reflections we can lose ourselves in, it is something to be deeply cherished, for we will miss it so much if it we lose it.