The weather has been very hot for a week or so now. It's nice to get a period of settled hot dry weather in this country so it's been very welcome but the garden has suffered. Our lush, green lawn is brown and we've lost an old and well-established shrub, as well as many of the newly planted bedding plants.

David and I have been watering every day and it's a mammoth task, not just because of the time it takes but also because it's so easy to forget something, then you look at it the following day and it's dead!

Today we've had the first rain for a while and it's been awesome - I love summer storms they are so refreshing, the effect they have on pollution and dust is wonderful. I pulled into the drive and just loved the water droplets hanging off the bottom of the fleur-de-lys on our new railings. Fabulous!

There is something magical about water to me....it doesn't matter whether it's rain, rivers, even baths, they all have a similar effect. I think it's the relentlessness of it really, a bit like King Canute, it's just not possible to stop the flow! .....well, except in the bath of course!