After the rains

we were both tired, on account of the rain having woken us so many times during the night.

CleanSteve left for the farmers' market to do some filming, and I lazed in bed with Bomble. All of a sudden, a screeching fight broke out in the garden below us, and without further ado Bomble leaped on to the windowsill, and out on to the little roof below. The fight moved on, and Bomble was stuck on the roof of the old lean-to cold store, being unable to jump a foot or so to the fence below because the clematis had grown so much. He did not seem to trust himself to run up the little roof back to the bedroom windowsill, but just stood there meowing. His back legs tend to give way under him these days, because of his arthritis.

Hastily, I ran down the garden, looking for the stepladder, and pulled it out from the storage under the cabin. The rain began in earnest. I lugged the ladder over to the roof, but the tangle of clematis and harsh spiky bushes was in the way, , and a stacked-up scaffold tower prevented me from finding a base. I grabbed a long piece of trellis and ran upstairs, thinking I could use it as a type of ladder to haul Bomble in through the window, but by this time he had screwed up his courage and was able to climb up the roof and leap on to the sill, once I'd moved a few obstacles.

He seemed none the worse for it, and when I went back down to put away the ladder, he followed me, and soon disappeared on his secret Bomble-business. There is a hole in the pile of weeds and greenery that is going to be our next bonfire. I suspect he has made it, for he often comes in smelling of ashes.

There seemed nothing for it but for me to get the camera and try to capture the essence of some of the very wet flowers. Here's a striped morning glory from the back step. Every night at six, when I remember, I bring in the bird feeder from the post on the lawn and hang it on the tree so the badgers can't trash it; then I pick today's crop of raspberries from our canes; and pinch off all the dead heads from the morning glory, secure in the knowledge that we'll have another twenty or so new flowers the next day.

Today I also cut back the clematis and spiky bushes in front of the lean-to roof, just in case Bomble forgets his age again.