Sunny intervals and a gentle breeze are forecast for today, which is an improvement on the showers which were forecast, and which proved to be the truth, for yesterday. Despite the bad forecast, and despite the intermittent showers, I managed to go out and run run early(ish) in the morning without getting rained on and Phil and I strolled out in the late afternoon in mostly blue sky and sunshine.
The blossom trees have all shed their petals now but we have buttercups all over the back garden, where the grass, incidentally, needs cutting again - will we have another stand-off to see who gives in and cuts it? And we have a better crop of roses in the small front garden than I have seen for years.
The year is rushing past and in a couple of weeks it’ll be official midsummer. It always strikes me as odd that it is called midsummer when as a rule it hasn’t warmed up very much and July and August have a better chance of being really warm. So it goes.
And before we know it we’ll be into Tour de France time, although in fact there’s still a good month before it starts. Meanwhile our own local boy, well almost local as he was born grew up in Bury, still part of Greater Manchester, Siman Yates, has just won the Giro d’italia.
let him slip past them on the descent of the Colle delle Fenestre and didn’t get their act together to chase him. This has been described as “probably the most bizarre act of self-immolation in a Grand Tour since 1989, when Pedro Delgado wrecked his race on day one by getting lost en route to the start of the prologue time trial.”
On more serious matters, here’s a headline from today’s Guardian:
UK moving to ‘war-fighting readiness’, Starmer says, as he calls on ‘every part of society’ to play role in defence – politics live
It seems he wants the UK to be the “fastest military innovator in Nato”. His plan is “a blueprint to make Britain safer and stronger, a battle-ready, bomber-clad nation with the strongest alliances and the most advanced capabilities, equipped for the decades to come”. And we need to do this because “we are being directly threatened by states with advanced military forces”.
Maybe we do need to become “preppers” and lay in stocks of baked beans, and lentils and pasta in preparation for global disaster. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
But then there is also global warming to take into account. Here’s a report of how a glacier fell apart and the Swiss village of Blatten was obliterated. The inhabitants had been made aware that this could happen and had been evacuated a week before but they were only able to carry a selection of their belongings. All sorts of family heirlooms, photos, memories are now buried under tons of mountainside!
I think that’s enough doom and gloom for today. Let’s just cheer for Simon Yates instead.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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