Nothing wrong with my basmati rice crop, coming along rather well.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again anyway: With all this talk about climate change and global warming, where's our share of it? Can we have a few weeks of global warming later this month, just so that we can feel that there has been some kind of summer?

It isn't just the constant rain that gets to me, but the bitter cold temperatures in what is supposed to be our high summer. We've got the central heating on most nights, and sometimes even have to light the woodstove just to take the damp off the rooms in the house.

Back last month, on one particular night, temperatures plunged to 2 degrees C in Northern Ireland. I've never in all my 64 years upon this planet known of any such adverse weather conditions in Britain.

I remember sodden summers even as a kid, but this year has to be the worst. It's been bad these past six or seven years, but 2012 will go down as the coldest, wettest in living memory. Unless someone out there knows different.

My vegetable crops are looking sick, and I've given up on my swedes and carrots. My spuds are giving us a very poor harvest, only a couple under each plant, which are all foliage and no crop to shout about. Look out for high veg prices in the shops.