We dont do weather - just rain

I knew it! as soon as the hosepipe ban was imposed it started to rain and it hasn't stopped since.   Well thats not strictly true "we" aren't under the hosepipe ban and it has been sunny a couple of times, but you know what I mean.
The rain does seem to have come with a vengeance though after the long dry period we had, - - - now when was that?.
It does however give us Brits the chance to have a good whine about our favourite subject for conversation, "the weather"
The early plants in the garden have had a battering as well as some of the new tree growth and presumably the blossom on the fruit trees. We do have however a number of plants that do ok in the rain as the pic below shows.  I took this yesterday in between the downpours!

 Not quite fully in bloom but the carpet of dandelions on this meadow is shrugging off the effects of all the rain.

The field above is alongside the River Derwent and to give you an idea of how much rain we have had here's a pic of the summer level of the river last year.

Now here's a pic taken last Saturday after a prolonged period of rain

The level is up a good 5 or 6 feet.

The general temperature though has not been too bad and the early season mushrooms are in evidence.  St Georges Mushroom is named so, as it normally makes an appearance on April 23rd St Georges Day. Here's a pic of the underside of one I found yesterday.

Most surprisingly, well to us anyway as we were looking at the river level on Saturday we found a Morel.  It looked to have been kicked over and just lay by the side of the footpath.  I went on the same footpath yesterday and eventually found 6 all within a few feet of each other.  They are not commonly seen in the UK and we have "Never" seen one before.  The ones I found are no more than 200 metres from my front door!

Here's a pic of one specimen.

Its latin name is Morchella Esculenta its only seen in late spring and is classed as "excellent" to eat. Although we do pick wild mushrooms this is one we will leave in the hope more grow next year.