That about sums the weather here of late, and for the month of May in general. We get one or two nice days in a row and then a storm brings it crashing down and we endure a week of crap before it improves again. This time it peaked at 32 degrees – a record for the year – but it’s now back to a week of clouds, rain and low 20s.
It’s been a very dull week so this will be a brief one from me. I am officially at a loose end on the work front. I have two sites on the go, one for the group of 5 clients who have gone worryingly quiet, and another for a lady who’s struggling to produce the text. I’m meeting with her this week so hopefully things will start moving forwards. Otherwise, and especially now our own new website is all done, I have little to occupy me. Instead I have turned my attention to house cleaning and to the annual treatment of our terra cotta tiles.
Matt’s still busy and is currently stuck on a nightmarish redesign for an online shop. The issue is that the software used to create the site is ridiculously unintuitive. There’s been much swearing going on at Port 80 of late…
Our three recent hot and sunny days have done wonders for the garden. Our irises, roses and peonies are all blooming, and all the plants in the veggie plot are looking very healthy indeed. These include 7/10 of our special plants, which are thriving, aided by generous doses of a comfrey and nettle fertiliser. Of the remaining three special plants, two ultimately succumbed to their parasite infestation despite all my efforts. However, the third made it back from the brink of death and is growing again at last. It will need a while longer before it’s big enough to be planted but I’m relieved it recovered.
To pad this out a bit, a quick comment on the political scene. First off, Emmanuel Macron is looking like he’s on course for victory in the legislative elections next month. He made some inspired choices for key cabinet posts and has managed the impressive feat of attracting big names from both the left and the right. His new party is the largest single party standing for election and all being well, he should get his governing majority.
In the UK, the story is less rosy (plus ça change). The Tories finally got around to releasing their manifesto. Unlike Labour’s which is bold, ambitious and equitable, theirs was an utter train-wreck. They managed to convert a 20 point poll lead into just 5 points in the space of a week. Despite the race tightening though, it’s still a foregone conclusion. A new poll today showed the gap’s already started to widen again. And historically, polls have tended to overstate the Labour vote and understate the Tory one. In any event, people always vote for the leader, not the policies, and Theresa May has a 45%-28% advantage over Corbyn in terms of approval ratings. That’s huge, and is why they’ll win big next Thursday. It doesn’t really matter too much who wins out of the two anyway: both support a hard Brexit so the end result for the UK is the same. It’s nice to hear Labour talk of renationalising expensive services, boosting NHS funding and scrapping tuition fees, but this la-la land economics ignores the massive brexit-shaped elephant in the room.
Back to Mazeroux and onto the weekend. We had Lee & Richard and Bryan and Carol over for a BBQ on saturday to take advantage of the weather. The boys had already had a few nights on the sauce but soon rallied after a beer or two. We sat outside until close to 11 when it got too hard to see. It was still surprisingly warm though. Even on really hot days, you often still need an extra layer come nightfall out here, but we were fine in vests and shorts. B&C left an hour or so later and apparently woke to comprehensive hangovers. The boys stayed over as usual, so we had a late one. They had sunday plans so had already gone by the time we crawled out of bed. We did our best to enjoy the final day of sun the next day, but weren’t in great shape. And that’s about all that happened.