Olympics, roundabouts and clipping

Can you hear that?  The brass band sounding out a happy tune.................the conservatory is finished!!! Declare a national holiday in celebration, issue children with commemorative mugs.......it is done!  Whoopee, only four months to get to this stage, but at last no more visits from the window people and their subbies are needed.

Well then, the Olympics far exceeded expectations right from the opening ceremony through to the final evening.  Team GB restored our faith in sports programmes and brought to the forefront many competitors who until two weeks ago we had never heard of.  Medal after medal was awarded and the whole country was excited to hear our National Anthem being played. Roll on Rio de Janeiro in 2016 where I fully expect a carnival theme to be the order of the day.  Our only flaw was wheeling out Macca yet again with his dodgy hair dye, failure to keep up with the pre-recorded lyrics and generally not really needing to be there.  Have you heard his current accent?  Part Scouse with a strong leaning of upmarket American?  For someone who bangs on about his roots so much (place not hair) he is doing his utmost to not sound like a Liverpudlian.

This weekend I am off to the Beautiful Days music festival, camping out for four nights with nowhere to plug in my straightners.  Last year we had glorious weather, however the forecast for the whole of this week is rain so I imagine wellies will be the order of the day for the entire time.  Not so much Beautiful Days as Muddy Days.  I have some funky new Doc Marten boots in patent red so I can alternate between them and the wellies.  No point really in packing crocs this year or the carpet slippers.

Worringly there appears to be a new trend in this area whereby drivers re-write the Highway Code.  A prime example of this was yesterday afternoon when I approached a roundabout and the oncoming driver failed to give way to the motorist on his left, i.e. me, despite my signalling my intention to turn.  Even worse, he did not even look to his right before carrying on across the painted white circle.  Perhaps he thought it was a decoration rather than a road marking?  Whatever, people need to wise up more to what is not only common sense but in fact a rule of the road.  A much larger local roundabout is in desperate need of weeding as the brick paviors on it have weeds around 12” high growing and forming a small forest.  To complete the look, there is now a buddleia tree in bloom from one of the cracks.  Looks pretty but shouldn’t really be there.

I have managed to get into the garden during lapses in the rain to commence the early pruning of shrubs and trees and have so far managed to make a little headway with the task.  I am now at the stage where I need shears rather than clippers; however the only shears I have access to come with my Dad attached.......... Regular readers will know he has a unique style of operating shears in my garden (think barren wasteland and you will get the idea) so I now have a dilemma.  Do I wait until he is away for a day, nip up the road and borrow them, or do I casually mention that a couple of areas need two inches lopping off?  The risk with this is I am likely to end up with a hedge at ankle height rather than chest level unless I stand guard whilst the chopping is happening.  Actually that is still a problem as I did it last time and when I turned away for literally two seconds...........whoops, the hedge was chopped down lower than agreed and of course had to be levelled.  I fully expect to return from the festival to a more open plan garden as I will have no control over my gardener whilst I am under canvas!  I will of course get my own back by ordering a goat and two sheep to live in my parents back garden.

This week I have been keeping an eye on the weather for the area of Spain I am visiting later in the year.  It is currently 37 degrees with weekend temperatures due to be 40 degrees........oh to have some of that here!  Roll on my trip, even though it will be a few degrees cooler by then it still beats our lousy summer.  Adios amigos.