Rain, Rain Come Again!

Sunshine is all very well, but you really can have too much of a good thing.
     Besides which you need a bit of rain to help you look forward to, and really appreciate a beautiful sunny day.
     Unfortunately where we live on the Eastern side of the UK, it has been several weeks since we had any rain. We had a brief shower last Tuesday, but in the main our garden has been surviving on our re-cycled bath water, which we have been using to water the garden rather than just letting it go down the drain.
     In the main I tend not to go in for weather spells as often you find that once the weather changes, it sticks with its new format. That is, if it starts raining, it will carry on doing so!
     However, enough is enough when even satellite pictures of the British Isles are showing us not as a green and pleasant land, but as a brown and crispy one!
     So here are a couple of rain spells from my own spell book:

Sympathetic Rain Spell
     Sympathetic magic means doing something which encourages the environment to follow suit and act in sympathy with your actions.
     A medieval spell for rain is very simple:
     Take a bowl or bucket of water outside, dip the bristles of a brooom in the water and flick it heavenwards. The drops falling from the broom imitate or mimic raindrops and hopefully encourage the sky to follow suit.
     As you do this, you can chant:

Come, Rain, Come!

Fall, Rain, Fall!

Drop, Rain, Drop!

Another Rain Spell
     Take a bowl or tub of water outside and stir it deosil (clockwise) with your broom, creating a vortex in your bowl.
     As you do this, know that you are stirring the sky, which is reflected in the water, encouraging the clouds to condense and accumulate, growing in the sky above. Imagine them like candyfloss, growing bigger and bigger, accumulating over your location.
     You can also chant:

I stir the sky, I stir the clouds

They grow and fill with rain!

I stir the sky, I call the clouds

To rain, and rain again!

The Walking Dead

This is the modern age where people are all connected via their computers or phone.
     So how do I find out what my son is up to? Well, of course, I read about it on his blog.
     Of course sometimes even that doesn't work.
     We have known that he was going to be doing the Three Peaks walk for a couple of months now. And his blog told us that it would be 'next week' (two weeks ago) and that he had been having a practise walk (from Beverley to Driffield ), which sounded pretty gruelling to me, and had ended up with a blistered foot - not a good start.
     So last Friday I forgot that he was going up to the Peak District, camping overnight so they could set off in the cool of the dawn the next day. And messaged him that I was having a foot long sausage for my tea (see how modern I am, sending a message about food!).
     There was no response - you would think a foot long sausage (30cm for youngsters) would get some sort of response. Then I remembered about the walk, camping, overnight etc and realised he must be driving, and obviously would have his phone turned off (yes folks there really is an 'off' button).
     So, as he had blogged about going for his walk, and we all knew he was going. I thought that I would keep an eye on his blog to find out how things went.
     (....Interlude while tumbleweed blows across the screen)
     Nothing.
     Not a word.
     Some time during the week we spotted his wife was playing WoW, there is a facility which lets you know when friends are online, and Graham wisped (whisper is a way of sending a private message to a single player rather than broadcasting to all and sundry) her to say hello, only to find out it was our son playing his wife's account.
   I immediately wisped him: 'So you aren't dead then?'
     'There was I picturing you lying dead all exposed on a barren hillside!'
    'Lol' came the considered response.
    We found out that he had done very well. He is not an athlete, unless couch potatoe was an olympic sport, but he had managed to walk two of the three peaks, when he had only hoped to complete one. And was determined to go back later and do the third.
   So a win win situation.
    Grats (as we gamers say) to Mike for completing two of the three peaks.
     Grats also for not being dead.
     Even more grats would be available for a son who remembered to ring his mother occasionally just to let her know he is still breathing.

The Birds!

It must be one of those times of year when lots of young birds are leaving the nest for the first time.
They don't have the fine flying control of the adults, which is a polite way of saying they don't always seem to know which way they are going.
     So we have the sight of a young starling flapping wildly and hanging upside down from the washing line, while a parent sits upright on top of the washing line, with a sort of 'sigh' expression in its shoulders.
     Then there are the sparrows which nest each year high up in the eaves, in a hole which was originally where the overflow from the loft water tank stuck out. Each year the little ones are 'encouraged' out by appearing to be shoved off the edge by a parent, while the other parent watches from the nearby hawthorn as the chick does a zooming nosedive, then learns to fly about six feet from the ground.
    We assume it was one of these novice flyers which managed to fall in through the tiny light we leave open in the bedroom and was put out again after flapping and squawking around the bedroom yesterday.
    This morning we had a young swallow swooped into the bathroom and out again (thank goodness) while I was in the bath.
    Then later there was the crash of crockery from the kitchen.
     'I hear the spin cycle has kicked in.' I remarked to Graham. The sink drying basket is positioned above the washer and the drying crockery 'settles' when the washer goes into its spin cycle.
     'The washer isn't on.....' said Graham.
     We both remained silent and hoped that the other would volunteer to go and find out what was going on downstairs (we were up in the spare bedroom, playing WoW). I cracked first: 'Well, are you going to look?' I said to Graham.
     It was a young blackbird this time, in the favourite place, the window above the sink. There was much squawking again as it was captured and released back into the garden.
     So far though the toads have stayed outside.