A summer of rain, roses and nightingales

Wenlock Edge There is something about the wildness of the dog rose, the way it stands outside cultivation with a beauty that inspires so much imitation

Days of rain and wild roses, a very British June. After the breathless spell of hot weather and sunshine, the showers were inevitable. Although some have been gently summery - good growing weather, as gardeners say - many have been epic downpours, looming like fantastical cities of cloud, bursting into tempests, thunder and lightning, cats and dogs, stair-rods, flash floods.

Sometimes the whole Wagnerian spectacle comes and goes in minutes, fascinatingly local when a mile or two down the road remains bone dry. The weather feels personal, purging, and inside the storms is another, existential world. Or that's how it felt, broken down on the motorway. Mercifully, we were in a service station car park, and once the vehicle was fixed enough to get us home, we churned through the carwash of motorway spray back to Wenlock.