The Dry

 Dateline: Golden Beach, Venice, Florida...

aka the Florida Sahara....

We came back from Britain to find ourselves in a desert. I've never seen it so dry here. My neighbours tell me it did rain once in the last few weeks but it seems to have made precious little difference. The soil, meagre at the best of times, is now just a fine powder. The poor orchid tree at the back which is usually a festival of white blooms at this time of year, is virtually bare. Though the one at the front, the Tree that Came Back from the Hurricane, is still hanging in there. Still more bush than tree but maybe that will change.

Sadly the passion flower vine - an indirect hurricane victim, having been butchered of necessity to make way for our restored garden fence - is just one plant that seems to have died completely. We expected rain today but nothing happened and the percentage chance went down, down, down.

There is, however always a bright spot. The frangipani branch I broke off from the parent tree and stuck in the ground appears none the worse - in fact you'd think it was actively relishing its environment.

The parent isn't doing too badly either.

And there's still water in the Gulf

Or there was at dawn on Saturday. Though, ominously, these patches of seaweed could be precursors of the gigantic blob of sargassum - all 13 million tons of it - that's allegedly heading purposefully for Florida.

We may be back up north when it hits, so won't need to hold our noses, but we'd better not get too smug.  It may still be there to welcome us when we get back.