It wasn’t quite pelting it down today, but the programme I was listening to whilst stuck in all-but stationary traffic on the M1 this afternoon was about various global efforts to beat drought.  Dew ponds in the South East.  Tenerife schemes to use greenhouse (real greenhouses, not metaphorical “greenhouse effect” greenhouses) heat to evapourate sea water to remove the salt and give pure water. A scheme to put 50 robot-piloted boats on the seas of the world making artificial clouds to combat the greenhouse effect.

Have we actually had a drought anywhere other than the South East?  We had quite a long period without rain, but my garden never got to the cracked earth stage I remember from childhood.  We’ve not had a hosepipe ban up here as far as I am aware.  And we’ve had rather a lot of rain in the last few days.  Our waterbutt, which, due to a diy failure, only collects the rain that falls directly into it through its gaping open top, is half full.  If it had actually been collecting roof rain it would unquestionably be full.  And that’s without us even having to divert our bathwater.  Mind you, the sort of torrential rain we’ve been having in fits and starts over the last few days is not the sort of rain that helps replenish water stocks.  When it falls too fast, too hard, it just slips off the top of the soil and contributes to pluvial flooding.
And another thing.  Thames Water, the wrath of whose customers is falling on them for not  repairing their pipes fast enough – when we went down to London to see the Queen, I was amused to see that Thames Water were coming into some flack in the Evening Standard for, erm, repairing their pipes.  The line the paper was taking was, wasn’t it awful that the evil water company were daring to close MAJOR London thoroughfares MERELY to dig up and repair century-old mains water pipes.  A somewhat inconsistent line to take when in previous days the company was being roasted for allowing a vast percentage of its water to escape its pipes into the ground (where, of course, it actually helps top up London’s parched water table.)