Rain at last but age-old patterns are moving fast

Times

15 hours ago

R ain at last, sweeping over dust-dry Suffolk in pulse after pulse, thinning as it marched eastwards, as it usually does, but enough to do more than just dampen the parched fields and wet the soil. Rain to refill the water butts and top up garden ponds; to turn dusty roads into brief, shining rivers, raindrops bouncing fatly up in a mist. Rain to move the moss down roofs towards the gutters and knock the petals from the first, spent roses, to wash the trees' dry leaves and conjure worms towards the surface from deep in the soil.
Butterflies and bees crept beneath leaves and waited out the first showers some have ever seen; slugs and snails, meanwhile, sallied forth into a freshly welcoming world. Froglets and toadlets, new-minted, used the welcoming wetness of the long grass to disperse from ponds and were hunted by grass snakes, their sinuous bodies shining in the rain.