My father has a memory from some long-ago summer when there had been a severe drought and, once it finally broke, he went out dancing in the rain with his parents.

We were certainly happy enough to dance at 7.30 yesterday evening when the gathering clouds and strengthening winds finally made good on their promise and wet stuff started to fall from the sky. In the end we had 25.2mm of rain – over an inch.

It hasn’t rained for so long, the young badger, coming above ground mid April this year, surely has scarcely seen the like before.

As the day was drawing to a close and shortly before the rain started, we discovered a Common Blue butterfly communal roost. There were eight of them in a little patch of dead Oxeye daisies, all closed down for the day.

We didn’t know that they roosted up together and so that was very interesting. However, I hope they found somewhere more sheltered once the storm got going.

The recent high temperatures have been most particularly hard for the dog who gets the award for the most baths in any one day:

She and we are so much more comfortable today.