Stormy Weather

[BBMmk2]

We have the London to Brighton bloody Bike Ride coming through our town today!! Bah humbug!! :( Call me a Victor meldrew but we do have road works all through summer on our main high street as well! Doe we need the bike ride as well? No!

[amateur51]

A cooler, greyer start today but possibly less humid?

My white hebe is covered in busy bees with their pollen sacs pretty full I'd say. The purple hebe comes out a week or so later so these little chaps will be kept busy. All very pleasing in a low key sort of way

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A cooler, greyer start today but possibly less humid?

Yes - the same here at the other end of the M1

My white hebe is covered in busy bees with their pollen sacs pretty full I'd say. The purple hebe comes out a week or so later so these little chaps will be kept busy. All very pleasing in a low key sort of way

Yes, I've been meaning to comment on how many more bees there seem to be this year than in recent years at this time. They're mostly small ones, (?honey as opposed to bumble?) but they're collecting pollen like nobody's business.



Well - except bees', that is, of course.

[Anna]

I also have a white hebe, it's next to perennial geraniums (Johnsons Blue), the whole bed is covered with small bees also the ceanothus and campanula, they do seem to like blue flowers. Very surprised that they are also going for the tiny flowers on the newly planted Heucheras.
I notice a lot of activity in the early evening outside my bumblebee nest of male bumbles hanging around dancing excitedly, it seems they're waiting for newly hatched Queens to come outside so they can mate.

Yesterday got to 24.6° but also a grey start here, cloud lifting a bit but forecast is just sunny spells centred around midday early afternoon.

[mangerton]

Fascinating floricultural detail, Anna. This is all quite outwith my ken. I'd have said Johnsons blue was an old fashioned wash-day aid. We live and learn, and there's nowhere better to do it than this forum.

Overcast here, but dry and warm. Happy Father's Day to all fathers, and I hope you all did as well as I did. A delicious lunch out last Sunday, and a most interesting bottle of Gilt gin - a Scottish single malt gin, which I am pre-prandially sampling now.

The early celebration was because miss m went on holiday today. OT, she texted me a few minutes ago to say they had landed safely in a thundery Mallorca.

[Nick Armstrong]

crossing the Berlin Wall through Checkpoint Charlie on foot (as I did in 1980). Felt like a character from a John Le Carre novel but a fascinating if scary experience. The East German border guards were not nice, believe me.

Yes I did that a couple of times in the 80s before the wall came down, and again shortly after... The latter occasions felt truly liberating, after as you say the Cold War tension of previous crossings. Especially in 1990 when I drove to Berlin - driving past the Brandenburg Gate and down Unter den Linden to buy tickets at the Komischer Oper for 'Die schweigsame Frau' felt very special indeed!

[Petrushka]

Yes I did that a couple of times in the 80s before the wall came down, and again shortly after... The latter occasions felt truly liberating, after as you say the Cold War tension of previous crossings. Especially in 1990 when I drove to Berlin - driving past the Brandenburg Gate and down Unter den Linden to buy tickets at the Komischer Oper for 'Die schweigsame Frau' felt very special indeed!

I went to see Siegfried at the Deutsche Oper on my visit in May 1990 and, yes, it was indeed liberating to walk through the Brandenburg Gate without those East German border guards!

[greenilex]

Nice and warm but overcast this afternoon at the Ropewalk Garden open day. Splendid Asian viol played by man down from Coventry - not sure what it was except that it wasn't a sitar. And the food as usual was superb. We also had flamenco dancers with fans. I crushed sprigs of rosemary and sage for a lady in a hijab,who hadn't met those scents before.

[BBMmk2]

Bit of a nip in the air today and overcast as well

[Pabmusic]

Bit of a nip in the air today and overcast as well

Oh dear! The Private Eye cover comes to mind from more than 40 years ago that commented on the first visit of Hirohito to Britain after the war:

[Anna]

Well, it didn't take long - just seen this in the Telegraph: Southern Britain could be heading towards a drought in the next fortnight, just months after experiencing the wettest winter on record. Certain areas may have no rainfall at all in the next week to 10 days, the Met Office said, and there is a “strong signal” the dry spell will continue after that. The Environment Agency said people should “use water wisely” to ease demand on supplies of the "precious resource". An area of high pressure near the UK is likely to stay long into next week, bringing warm temperatures and very dry conditions.

Cloudy in the main today but warm here at 19.3°, dark clouds now with streaks of pink from last of the sunset.

[Petrushka]

Well, it didn't take long - just seen this in the Telegraph: Southern Britain could be heading towards a drought in the next fortnight, just months after experiencing the wettest winter on record. Certain areas may have no rainfall at all in the next week to 10 days, the Met Office said, and there is a “strong signal” the dry spell will continue after that. The Environment Agency said people should “use water wisely” to ease demand on supplies of the "precious resource". An area of high pressure near the UK is likely to stay long into next week, bringing warm temperatures and very dry conditions. .

This is completely ridiculous. While we may not be in Southern Britain, here in Staffs we had less rain during the winter than did the South but even so I can recall a spokesperson from Severn Trent Water saying that even if there was no more rain until Summer there was no possibility of a drought. A week to 10 days without rain? Big deal! What planet are these people on? Anyone living in those areas blighted by the winter floods must be howling with laughter (or rage) at reading such nonsense.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I draw Pet's attention to key phrases in the article such as "could be", "may have" "strong signal" "likely", and (above all) "Telegraph".

[Pabmusic]

Wow! Such a storm! It lasted about 30 minutes but it's over now (we certainly needed the rain).

[Serial_Apologist]

This is completely ridiculous. While we may not be in Southern Britain, here in Staffs we had less rain during the winter than did the South but even so I can recall a spokesperson from Severn Trent Water saying that even if there was no more rain until Summer there was no possibility of a drought. A week to 10 days without rain? Big deal! What planet are these people on? Anyone living in those areas blighted by the winter floods must be howling with laughter (or rage) at reading such nonsense.

A lot of it, I understand, is down to soil compaction, which is in turn down to farming methods antithetical to rainfall seepage (and earthworms btw!) favouring compaction and soil depleting run-off - the latter in turn leading to rapid river flow, river bank erosion and flooding of lower reaches. Rainfall just doesn't percolate through to sustain low-level water tables, and therefrom a slow but above all dependable supply to rivers, lakes and reservoirs, unlike in olden times.