DRYNESS IN THE PARK

Our 2026 summer has been dry as well as hot. ‘Unseasonable’ by the traditional standards that for me reference the later twentieth century. Some trees are already shedding leaves.

In Gloucester park, there are carpets of leaves on a hard earth. In the park, even around 6am, I am in a very different world from that of the hydrotherapy pool – see https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2026/07/21/reclaiming-water/.

In the middle of August last year – https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2025/08/17/park-trees-in-a-dry-season/ – I drew attention to a similar phenomenon in a more advanced state. We are in the second successive year of such dryness. The context of the climate crisis deepens my unease.

On this early morning walk,  I steer away from the politics of adaptation. I turn my attention to the ground under my feet.

I accept this bleak ground for what it is, easily enough. It has its own beauty. I resist accepting it for what it points to. I don’t want things to be this way: I really don’t. When and why and how did I get shunted on to a dystopian time-line ? It surely wasn’t part of the original plan.

But there it is, and here I am, and that’s it. Without anaesthetising myself into resignation, I walk on. I can at least accept being unresolved.