The rain came. Finally. And 4 extras.

Day after day of hot humid weather.

More overcast today so I got on with sawing splitting and stacking after watering the garden, collecting up and stripping the drying haricot bean plants.

I am trying round stacking just for a change and because these stacks need to look somewhat ornamental given their imposition in one of The Boss' favourite view points (extra). These are two stacks - one of dry acacia wood from dead trees and one of wet and very heavy acacia wood. Gotta keep some order in the woodyard, no?

The garden still produces wonders and even red jalapeño peppers now. The plum tomatoes make the sweetest pasta sauce. The cabbage white caterpillars made an advance on the winter greens - cavallo nero, sprouts and various cabbage -  having been held at bay by some unknown but much appreciated predator. But they would have been in ribbons in the old Kent garden by now.

I finally got a halfway decent shot (extra) of one of the big black bees - the size of a hornet - that have accompanied us all summer.

And then the rain came. Short-lived at first but implacable. Then a steadier second wave soaking the land.

It's actually pretty miserable when it is wet and dark but such a relief. Water flowing everywhere and my makeshift collector like a torrent collecting the runoff from the roof. The leek patch looked like a fairly good imitation of a paddy field (another extra). No wonder they went to such herculean efforts to terrace and hold this steep and slippery land.

Stone walls in the Welsh uplands that separate the mountain ffridd (common grazing) from the lower fields have always humbled me but here they are built higher and every five metres just to make a meagre field of a viciously tilting hill.

Oh, and the dried figs whilst looking suitably homespun do actually smell and taste like dried figs. I like that leathery chewiness and the dark smokey flavours. (Yet another extra)