Day 71 Tuesday 2nd June.

I am getting fed up of this weather. People from Scotland do not thrive when the day time temperature is constantly over 25°C.  Also having to visit the allotment every day to water is becoming a bit of a chore. It is now officially summer, so where is our traditional British Summer weather. I want 15°C day time temperatures, I want rain for three days solid. More to the point farmers probably need it. I know that the allotment needs it. The only downside I can see is that the grass will grow and I’ll have to cut it.

Serious point

We have just come through what is probably the hottest and driest May on record. I’m not certain, but I think that the daytime temperature has topped 20°C every day, and in London at least I don’t remember it raining. I know that the Covid-19 pandemic, and police riots in the USA are grabbing the headlines right now, but we need to seriously get on top of the causes of climate change. There was some good news on that front though. Because of the reduction in energy requirements due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the exceptionally sunny weather Britain recorded its first ever month when no electricity was generated by coal fired power stations

Day 72 Wednesday 3rd June.

One year today Diane and I will be getting married. The venue is the Dryburgh Abbey Hotel, near St Boswells in the Scottish Borders. We will actually be getting married in the Abbey itself.

Diane has started her own blog counting down to the wedding. You can find it at silversplicer.wordpress.com.
All the information will be there. Much more comprehensive and also more accurate than is likely to be found here. Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to the day immensely, and I will be giving my take on how things are progressing from time to time. Diane is counting the days down.

Diane’s son Chris and his partner Charlotte came round to help us celebrate the day, actually I’m not sure they knew that it is a year today until Diane started plying them with Prosecco. We hade a Lebanese vegetarian mezze from a new restaurant that has only just opened. They picked a bad day for their official opening – about a week after lockdown. It is called Noura and it is very good. We will go along there for a proper meal when it re-opens.

Day 73 Thursday 4th June.

The weather has changed. It is now a lot cooler than it has been. It even rained (a bit), so we didn’t need to water the allotment.

We sent out our “Save the Day” fridge magnets today. So unless we have forgotten any one, possible with me, less likely with Diane, everyone who we are planning to invite should receive a little reminder through the post soon. Proper invites will follow nearer the date, assuming that the current lockdown will be over by then. If not I will ask the band to devise a set of Scottish Country Dances that allow us to dance two metres apart.

It is now eleven weeks since Diane and I decided to move in together so that we could still see each other during lockdown. Though looking back I think that her bidet was also an attraction in a time when toilet roll was rarer than 🦄💩

We have survived a ceiling collapse and the subsequent redecoration of the bedroom. We like each others cooking and taste in music. I think we’ll be OK.

Day 74 Friday 5th June.

The day began early. Diane found some Oak Processionary Moths on the oak tree in the front garden. Left to their own devices they can strip the leaves off an oak tree and they are also hazardous to human and animal health. The mature caterpillars shed very fine hairs which an be the source of extreme irritation.

The guys dealing with them need full PPE, to make sure that they do not come ito contact with the hairs.
They dealt with them satisfactorily.

We spent the day at the allotment. We hadn’t done much for a few weeks except water it. A good weeding was required. All our beds were given a thorough hand weeding. Chris and Charlotte can weed their own beds we decided. It all looks quite tidy. How long that will last I don’t know. We had some more rain this afternoon which will probably encourage the weeds to grow again.

While we have been wanting some rain for a few weeks now, the timing of todays rain was annoying. There had been a couple of short, but heavy showers which forced us to retreat to the shed, but not enough to soak into the ground. We decided to water the plants before we went home. which takes about three-quarters of an hour. While I was in Lidl looking for cheap gin to turn into rhubarb gin (there is no point in wasting Bombay Sapphire at £22 a bottle) the heavens opened. Enough to give the allotment a good watering. Also enough to give us a good watering as we rode home on our bikes. If we hadn’t spent the time watering, which in hindsight, we needn’t have, we would have been home and dry by the time the rain came.