Last year we grew leeks from seed for the first time, quite successfully.
One leek, however, was too small and weedy to pick, so we left it in the garden where it survived the winter.
This year it grew too quickly to pick, and sent up a four-foot high shoot with a globe topped by a long spike. It remained like that for weeks. The other morning we were surprised to see the globe and spike had split and were left dangling beneath a rather spectacular flower.
The insects seem to like it too.
I usually photograph places where I’ve lived. Here is one corner of my room in Leeds in the summer of 1976. The washbasin was handy for peeing in as the toilet was on the floor below. Well, you can be like a slob when you live on your own.
What do I see? Towels strewn around. Swan electric kettle, toaster and fan heater on the floor. An anglepoise lamp I still have. The wooden book rack I made at school which I still use, containing books I still have. A naff set of biros designed to look like quill pens. A tiny nineteen-fifties transistor radio in front of the mirror on the edge of the dressing table … and in the corner on the floor some bottles of water.
Yes, we had a drought in 1976. It was one of the warmest years of the last century, not surpassed until this century. The highest temperature recorded was 35.9°C (96.6°F), not quite reaching 36.7°C (98.1°F) of 1911. The drought was caused by low rainfall the previous summer which lasted through the autumn and winter. By the autumn of 1976 water was rationed in some places by means of standpipes in the streets. My parents’ house had an infestation of seven-spotted ladybirds.
Could we be heading there again? I am no climate change denier, but despite the clear upward trend I hope that once we are through it we will have experienced an outlier, at least for long enough to see me out. As for my children, both still in their twenties, they could be well-advised to move to somewhere like Fort William, Portree, Stornoway or Kirkwall, preferably on high ground not too near from the sea.