Layer upon layer of chocolate? Nah – brown stuff yeah – not chocolate no.

I’ve come home to discover my greenhouse has got blight too – all of the tomato plants are slowly dying from the ground up. They’re going yellow with black spots then keeling over. They weren’t like this on Sunday. They were healthy then.

I’m tearful.

There is nothing in the garden that we can’t buy. We’re lucky. When our crop fails, we just go out and find ourselves some more by getting money out and paying for it. It’s not our livelihood or a matter of starvation – it’s just that it’s been worked so hard for and it’s almost all gone in a sea of mud and rain. We have a ‘day off’ tomorrow – there is no rain forecast but then on into the future as far as the Met Office’s predictions go, there’s more rain. It’s relentless.

What must it have been like when the potato crops failed in a poor Ireland? What’s it like for pea farmers down our east coast? What’s it like for people who live in the desert whose very existence is threatened when their crops fail? Who cares about crops when homes are gone or flooded? It puts my woes in their place but I still feel impotent and miserable.

So, we went out to the Bean café for a hot drink…..layers of chocolate in a cup. Pure comfort in a glass. We may not feel like it today but we’re still the lucky ones.

Last year, I was tying myself in knots.....