Well I think I say it every year but honestly this the coolest and wettest summer ever. The trees are growing thick and fast. I don’t think the garden has ever been so well screened. The vegetables and fruit are in a sorry state so not expecting very much at all there. If this were 300 years ago we would be looking at a famine I guess. Well here in the north at any rate.

We currently have an amber flood alert if force for the weekend. This is the third in as many weeks. My office at work is lower than the road level and it got flooded a couple of weeks ago and has just dried out. I suspect it is about to get wet again. They’ve announced at work that we shall be leaving a month earlier at the end of September so there is some good news around. I haven’t made any plans yet. I think I’ll just see what happens. Change comes and it weaves its effect whether we like it or not. It’s a strategy that works for me. Wonder what I’ll be doing this time next year?  Don’t care really, so long as the weather and my health is good.

There is no good news about. Just the usual economic madness and forecasts of doom; I’m a pessimist anyway, so I can cope with that. Not looking good though I have to say, (well unless you’re a banker or politician.)  Someone wrote that we need to adopt the mentality of burrowing creatures. Pay of all debts, stock up with provisions and hunker down till it all blows over. All the indicators however suggest that may be some time. At least a decade away and likely longer. This is no simple economic recession now but a global reset of the elite power base.

It all sounds like a Tolkien novel. The west fades while the east ascends. Perhaps Tolkien was much more prescient than they all reckoned. I have always thought so. Perhaps we elves need to now sail across the sea to the undying lands, as we do not have the one ring to cast into the pit of fire...oh well.

I’d like to say I’ve been doing all sorts of great things, but truth is with the rotten weather it has been very quiet. Damp, dismal evenings with the lamps on – how’s that for July? I’m off to Knebworth with Nick this weekend for the annual barbecue with Noreen and Jane. The forecast isn’t good so I suspect it will be indoors. But it will be nice to see them both before we all go to Scotland in September. The holiday is the third week in September so I may not go back to work ever again after that all – well if I’m lucky.

Have a good weekend.