The rain began before dawn, with heavy drops tearing at the moss on the roof and threatening to block the gutters and downpipes, which gurgled ominously. With little wind, the insistent thundery downpour dragged on until a faint line of light began to outline the eastern hills. My sleep confounded, I watched as the morning seeped into view through the mist hanging over the valley.
Squally winds followed, stripping the first leaves from the beech trees and starting to dislodge the last of the apple crop. These final russets, swelling now from plentiful moisture, have been one of the beneficiaries of this wet early autumn. For some other apple varieties the rain came too late, and, added to the spring storms that damaged the setting fruit, the yields have been disappointing – with little scope for cider-making.
Growing a number of different apple cultivars gives us some insurance against the vagaries of our unpredictable weather – they flower at different times, offering pollinators broader access, and respond to rain and drought in subtly different ways. If a season favours one variety, we will at least get the benefit of that part of the crop – while a monoculture might fail completely.
As the day progressed, the cloud thinned and pale sunlight began to filter through the trees, highlighting the turning leaves against the uncertain outlines of the hills beyond. Then, suddenly, brilliant sunshine escaped from behind a passing shower and a full rainbow emerged across the north-eastern sky.
In the fading light, more substantial banks of cloud began to build – bulky, dark and threatening. When the full moon rose over the Cambrian Mountains soon after nightfall, the freshly washed atmosphere, now almost devoid of dust, added barely any warmth to its colour – even close to the horizon. As the disc of the moon was repeatedly occulted by patches of heavy cloud, the strata were separately illuminated as though from within – giving an impressively three dimensional effect and showing the complexity of the cloudscape.
It is just before dawn, heavy rain has begun to fall. Again.
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