Last evening as I walked home, the pavement was damp with the rain that had fallen earlier in the afternoon. The weekend had been hot and sunny, the warmest it has been for a while.

As I walked the scent of the rain was everywhere. It is such a wonderful scent and made the walk home all the more enjoyable. The smell evoked freshly cut grass and earthiness as if nature all around had finally burst through.

It seems that there’s a great deal of scientific study that’s been done on this subject.

Scientists in Australia first named it Petrichor, and they worked out that it is the blend of oils secreted by plants after a dry spell.  These oils, when released become mixed in the air and creates the smell that we associate with rain.

We have a screen of ferns, at the front of our house which in wetter years, grow amazingly tall. As I arrived home, I noticed the tiny beads of rain on the fronds. I’m glad that I managed to capture it.

This year, the fronds of the ferns have reached over the windowsill of our front window. I am grateful that they are so beautiful to look at, as they distract everyone from the sight of our windows which have not been painted since we moved in.

Every year, without fail, the ferns grow back after they have died down in winter and even though, most years we forget and neglect them as they should be cut back once the frost has taken hold.  The fronds turn brown and brittle and lose the lush green of summer.  We usually don’t get round to cutting them back until it is almost spring, and then all the faults in our front windows become glaringly obvious. It is a surprise that they grow back so quickly after being so badly treated.

This year, I am determined to get a decorator to paint the windows, they are very old. We live in what is referred to as a 1930’s semi and the romantic in me wants to keep the leaded panes of glass, but they are now letting in water and urgently need attention.  Having an old house means there is a constant list of things that needs to be fixed.

But, just for a brief while, the rain and the luscious green fronds of these ferns have replaced the never ending to-do list and I am thinking about poetry, the verses of John  Betjeman about surburbia and the beautiful rain in Summer by Longfellow:

How beautiful is the rain!

After the dust and heat,

In the broad and firey street,

In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain

Back to that never-ending to-do list…..