It was earlier this year and the Met. Office was debating what season it was. We’d had torrential rain more or less solidly from November through February. The leaves had fallen from their branches later than usual so there was a case for this being an extended Autumn. Or was it an early Spring? In his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer wrote “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote“(1). That may have been…