An update from Anne and Anna about the pond. The text on this image is reproduced below for screen readers.
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We are in the middle of a long summer drought and our pond has dried up — though we still have water in a very deep area that we call the sump. Realistically we can't expect significant amounts of rain until September at the earliest. The pond will recover swiftly as soon as the autumn rains begin.
In the meantime it's a golden opportunity to clear surplus vegatation from the pond and to find out exactly how deep the pond is. The pond bottom has a more complex shape than we realised! We need to make a contour map so that we can move around the pond safely when it fills up this autumn.
Our last serious drought was in 2022. There wasn't a hosepipe ban that summer and the gardening team used mains water to keep the pond full. Attitudes have changed since then, and we decided not to use mains water at all this summer. That's why the pond has dried out this year.