Falling asleep under a parched sky, we woke to a world shimmering with wet. After so many dry months, it was raining at last. After breakfast I headed down the lane. The temperatures had risen too, and as though heaving a sigh of relief, the ash trees were bursting into leaf. Branches bare since October, seemed to be blazing with new life before my very eyes. The song thrush sang with renewed gusto: lawns were soft enough for worm hunting, his nestlings in the hedge wouldn’t starve. The air was intoxicatingly fresh.