Project 365 day 237: late summer in the Downs

It's been a perfect late summer day in our valley in the North Downs: blue sky, fluffy white clouds bobbing gently along, a light breeze. It's warm but not hot, and dry - a delight after the many wet, cloudy and humid days we've experienced this summer. Everyone has been making hay while the sun shines: on Monday the field beside our house was mown, yesterday the hay was turned, and today the astonishing machine with waving arms has created huge cylindrical bales and wrapped them in shiny black plastic. These alien forms were dotted across every meadow when I walked up the hill late this afternoon, glistening in the low sun. Apart from the shiny plastic, it looked and felt idyllic, and for a while it was; but I couldn't enjoy it for long without regretting our poor growing season and worrying about the disrupted patterns of our weather. Our potatoes and tomatoes were blighted as a result of long periods of warm, damp and windy weather; the aubergines are now unlikely to crop for lack of sun and warmth, and the beans, normally reliable, are in very poor shape. Some things are growing well, but local farmers P talks to on his early morning walks tell him their wheat crop is the poorest they have ever seen. Further afield, extreme weather events are blighting lives as well as crops, and all summer I've heard news and read reports of new tipping points passed and unprecedented temperatures accelerating warming and melting in places which should still be cold. As we approach the Glasgow summit and XR demonstrators protest in London, I despair at the woefully inadequate response of our government and others, tinkering at the edges and placing their faith in technical fixes while in denial about the fundamental economic and societal changes needed to limit climate change. The weather with me may be wonderful right now, but for the planet it's already too late, and that knowledge tempers my pleasure in the beautiful day.