The Revenge of the Water Spirit

I sometimes write a post and then delay publishing it while I edit. I haven't often regretted that but I do today and I wish I'd published yesterday's post before the events of the evening.

Water did indeed reclaim the fens. A mass of humid air pushing down from the North Sea and moving slightly eastward as it travelled, arrived at the first rise in the land and exploded. A supercell unveilled its wrath on the narrow road that leads up from the river just east of here. It tore limbs from trees and felled at least three. As it crossed the main road it took down another two trees and blocked the road. As it passed over the Night Planted Orchard it delivered its payload of liberating water in a storm the like of which we have never witnessed. A miniature tornado blow open the windows of the house, soaking Lady Snoutingdingle's boudoir from wall to wall. It tore down willow trees all along the road. It borrowed a summerhouse from one garden and moved it two doors down. A child's trampoline was spotted chasing a murder of excited crows. Lids were sucked from parched water-butts soon to be filled in the blink of an eye. The storm cleared the guttering in a filthy, mossy overflow. The rain made a laugh of my carefully dug drains, overtopping them in a heartbeat. The Admiral mercifully survived the onslaught but seems to be the only willow that hasn't lost at least a major branch. 

But the Night Planted Orchard? It wasn't damaged in any way. Even the broken branch on the grand Old Lady which we had left attached by the thinnest sliver because it's bearing fruit, was left intact. Half of her plums and fully half of the apples in the orchard were cast into the dusty grass. If we get more rain, I suspect that our harvest will be smaller than normal. But the hard, small fruit that we have left, crammed full of nascent sugars by the weeks of burning sun, will be perfect.

Yes the water spirit has returned and has won her long, bitter battle with the sun, as she always does in these haunted wetlands.