In the ravine everything seems to be thriving. The trees are fully leafed and brilliant green, the wild apple trees are nursing their nascent crop, the buttercups have given way to daisies, the cloying-sweet fragrance of the bedding grasses' tiny white flowers still envelopes us as we swing our way up the slopes where they tend to flourish, the Queen Anne's lace are beginning to mature their flowerheads, and the red berries of the baneberry flash their fiery colour in the undergrowth among the graceful ferns.

Underfoot, on the trails, the reason for their runaway growth becomes obvious; whereas in most other summer periods the woods have long since dried out from spring rains following the snowmelt, and the occasional rain events and thunderstorms are occasional in nature, this year it's been vastly different. Most days we've had so far this spring and summer have been replete with rain. Not necessarily constant rain throughout the day, but a day where sunshine or overcast has been host also to rain. That has been a constant, this year. And as a result there has been no opportunity for the ground to fully dry at any given time; it has been so thoroughly soaked that water now sits in pools under the trees, genial hosts in their wetland-appearance to mosquito larvae.

There is a bonus in this; we see colourful fungi appearing and appreciate their strange colours, sometimes extraordinarily bright oranges, reds, yellows, even a ghastly purple-grey. White, slender columns of fungi also appear, not Indian pipe, but with a sharply slender stalagmite shape repeated infinitely. On the trails, however, there are areas so deep in muck that we tend to slither along, and it is rather nasty.

In the garden everything was flourishing and for the most part still is, under the pervasive influence of the rain, abetted by still-plentiful sun events and high humidity along with summertime heat. The perennial floral succession is in full sway, so colour, form and texture abound admirably. Of late, however, the hanging baskets have become tired and unhappy; they've had no opportunity to dry out between soakings.

The urns and garden pots of which we have many don't appear to have yet been affected. The garden looks happily glorious.