Ash and embers

I awoke to the smell of smoke. My immediate reaction was to check on the boys, who were both sleeping soundly, uncovered and sweaty at the edges. The smoke was an outside odour, seeping through open windows to flip my worry switch for the day.

I tried to address my alarm at the unimaginitively named Gowy Woodland Park: a mix of grassland and trees growing on a former landfill site next to the River Gowy. Despite its unglamourous foundations, it's popular with dog-walkers, especially when seeking shade and water. I enjoy the hodgepodge habitats, something about the close canopy of the trees, open meadows and slow river usually comforts my brain.

The grass was bleached bone white while the clover and dock remained indefatigably green. In my eyeline, the hogweed had gone to seed in crisp parasols while a grasshopper by my feet out-buzzed the power lines. Demoiselles drifted at the river's edge where eager paws have churned the clay into a muddy chute directly down to the low-lying river. The pale wings of meadow brown butterflies lifted from the path as I passed, making me think of ash on the breeze, their orange underwings hinting at embers.

St Swithun's Day, 15 July, is a day of folkloric weather forecasting with potential pagan roots and some scientific support, according to the Royal Meteorological Society. Here's the proverb in full:

St Swithun's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St Swithun's day if thou be fair
For forty days 'twill rain nae mare

In an ill omen, this year it was marked with unprecedented 'firewave' conditions. The smoke I smelled could have been from wildfires to the north east on Saddleworth Moor and Tintwistle Moor, or west on Conwy Mountain. Forty more days? I bloody hope not.