British summers

The weather had been soooo hot and now we have the thunderstorms - not hereabouts but close - it chunters away to itself and then ............ down comes the rain............ or hail.

SUMMER!!

Anything is possible while people continue to pave gardens and chop down trees ..........
View from my windows earlier in the week!!!

This is the front garden - can you see the size of those hailstones?



this is how they looked on the parasol that we didn't have time to put down and cover!!!




hitting the flat roof puddle


Then it is over and the sun comes smiling out as though nothing had happened............ Oh! to be in England now that Summer's here  (misquote of Browning's poem)!

Just in case you're wondering - here is the full poem.............

HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD

Oh, to be in England
Now that April ‘s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England — now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom’d pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge—
That‘s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
— Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Browning left England and lived for many years in Italy, where he died in Venice in 1889.  Browning is buried in Poets' Corner, Wesminster Abbey and his memorial stone is made of Italian marble.  His wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning had died in 1861 and Browning wanted to be buried alongside her in the English cemetery in Florence.  However, by the time of his death, the city authorities were no longer allowing new burials.