Ne'er cast a clout

That's what we are told, with the qualification, "Till May be out".  Well, the may is now out, although there are still some very tight buds.

 It has really only come into flower this week, probably due to the warm weather we had.  Earlier this week, a day or three before it could really be called "out", the OB and I cast off a clout or two - only to put them back today now that it is in bloom!  Turned right chilly today, it has!

As the dog and I go into the Ladies Mile nature reserve for a walk we pass an apple tree which is now full of blossom.

There is also plenty of blossom on the one and only crab apple tree, but most of it is on one side! Still, it bodes well for the OB wanting to make crab apple jelly later in the year.

I was also very pleased to see a flock of swifts on Thursday afternoon, the first this year.  Mind you, it was a very small flock - just three birds!  But it reminded me of one of my summer delights, sitting at an outdoor table for dinner at one of the restaurants in the square in Chateaubriant and watching (and listening to) the multitude of swifts swirling and screaming around the church tower.  With luck, just a few weeks away.

If it's not one thing . . .

I doubt anyone in the UK who is compos mentis can be unaware of the forthcoming (I refuse to use the non-word 'upcoming') referendum.  We have been subjected to diatribes and arrant nonsense from both the Remain and the Leave camps and - fortunately - a certain amount of sense from both sides as well.  What does irritate me (and, I suspect, many other voters) is that both sides state as facts what will or will not happen after the referendum.  Whatever the result.  For goodness' sake, not one of those absolutely certain people has a crystal ball!

One thing in particular disappoints me.  The Prime Minister promised quite specifically that if his negotiations failed to bring about considerable change, he would lead a campaign for us to leave the EU.  Well, either his definition of 'considerable' is considerably different from mine or he has broken his promise.  That is what I find disappointing.  I expected better of him.

But still, there is one benefit that we have received from all the hoohah.  The American Presidential election has been pushed off the top spot in the television news and off the front page of my newspaper!  I get terribly confused by the American electoral system with its caucuses, colleges and primaries.  Somebody did once try to explain it to me - I think it was Skip - but I ended up more confused than ever.  It's a bit like trying to understand American football.  I'm just glad that we don't have either of the presidential front-running hopefuls as potential prime ministers of this country.  Not that some of ours aren't just as bad!

I enjoyed summer

It happened last weekend.  Saturday was a day of glorious weather - and Brighton must have been crowded.  Not only was the weather very good, but it was the first day of the Brighton Festival, which is claimed to be the biggest arts festival in England with only the Edinburgh Festival outdoing it in the UK.  The first day always sees the children's parade wending its way through the streets, with entries from every school in the city.  I rarely - make that never - venture into the town on summer weekends if I can avoid doing so and when I had to go out on Saturday morning and cross the main road into town from the north (and therefore London), I estimated that the cars would take at least half an hour to cover the remaining two or three miles to the sea front.  And then the drivers would have to find somewhere to park!

Sunday was, if anything, even better; the temperature was certainly higher.  Our local paper published a picture of the crowds waiting for trains at about 6.00pm :

Rather them than me!

Yesterday was another fine day, but today is grey and wet.  Like I said, I enjoyed summer - while it lasted!

Hoist with my own petard

Yesterday afternoon I was sifting through old photographs at the request of my son and his fiancée.  They were after pictures of our various dogs through the ages for what seemed to them a perfectly sound reason.  I, of course, became distracted and started fishing out pictures that could have been mildly embarrassing to my son, when I came across this one dating from about 1950 showing me, my father and my brother on the sea front at Broadstairs.

I'm sot sure which is the more embarrassing, that one or this from 1947!

Nuisance calls and naivete

I had one of 'those' telephone calls this morning.  The gentleman (I use the term in its loosest sense) on the other end of the line claimed to be from the Telephone Preference Service, the service to which we subscribe in order to block those unwanted cold sales calls.  I was immediately suspicious because:
a) my caller had a strong accent that originated from the Indian sub-continent;
b) it was only 8:20am;
c) the TPS are not the sort of body to make unwanted telephone calls.

My interlocutor asked if we receive unwanted telephone calls, to which I responded in the affirmative and told him that his call was unwanted, especially at that time of the morning.  he carried on talking but when I repeated - loudly - that his call was unwanted, he simply put the phone down.

I might have contacted the TPS myself to complain about this call, but the caller ID told me that the number was unavailable so there seemed no point.

I do have a modicum of sympathy for those young people (and I imagine they are young people in the main) in places like India who, desperate for a job to earn money, work in those call centres from which so many nuisance calls originate.  But I have no sympathy for the companies that employ them.  Nor do I have any sympathy at all for those people who use emails and telephone calls to con people out of money.  I sincerely hope that I am not and never will be sufficiently gullible to fall for the sort of trick I heard about only yesterday.

This involved a gang on men who telephoned elderly people claiming to be from the police.  They told their intended victims of problems with their banks and persuaded them to draw out their funds and hand them to the "police" for safe-keeping when a gang member called at the victim's house.  I find it incredible that anybody could be naive enough to fall for that - but one woman aged in her 70s drew out £130,000 and handed it over!

An English tradition

Today is a bank holiday in England.  It's known as the May Day bank holiday even though it is held on the first Monday in May regardless of whether or not that day is also the 1st May, May Day proper.  Mind you, in Oxford they still celebrate the proper May Day.  Yesterday it was estimated that the crowd on Magdalene Bridge to watch the dawn numbered as many as 25,000 people!  Meanwhile the choir of Magdalene College sang Hymnus Eucharisticus from the top of the tower.

And in keeping with another tradition, the weather today is wet (ish), dank and drear.

Darling buds of May

So here it is again - May Day.  And the Weather Gods seem to have entered into the spirit of the occasion giving us a beautiful day weather-wise.  Granted, there is quite a breeze up on the Downs, but that is nothing unusual.  I think the weather must have gone to my head as I have spring cleaned what we call the conservatory.  In reality it is not much more than a lean-to at the back of the house providing an entrance (and exit) for the dog and a place to keep wet-weather gear, wellingtons, dog leads and all that type of paraphernalia.  And the freezer and tumble dryer as well.  It really was in desperate need of cleaning but the weather has to be just right to undertake the task - and today it was.  So, for the first time in months, I cleared the cobwebs, swept up the dead and dried leaves, the dog hair and the mud and then washed the floor.

Not content with that, I took the dog for a walk round the Roman Camp.  Since my nasty bout a couple of weeks ago I have not really been 100% and so the walks have been somewhat less energetic that I would consider normal - driving to the park in the morning instead of walking 10 minutes each way and cutting the afternoon walk, quite drastically some days.

What a delight it was to see bluebells, primroses, cowslips, violets and other flowers - and to catch a snatch of a skylark's song.  But of the darling buds of may there was no sign yet.