Rain at last

Our poor baked garden is soaking up the pouring rain like a sponge.

There is a down side though...

The voracious London Snail - this is a tiddler. The big ones are the size of my arm.

Our garden is alive with hundreds of slugs and snails. The problem is I'm too soft. I can't crunch them up or drown them, so I just throw them over the fence onto the road. Most of them find their way back, but it's better than doing nothing. We have so many we don't even bother trying to grow soft lettuce - we grow the much tougher perpetual spinach and chard instead, and use the young leaves in our salads - it's just as nice. Well, that's what we tell ourselves anyway.

Wet Californian poppy sensibly closed up for the day