Flaming June

Today marked my first failure on my great cycling-to-get-the-paper project. The problem is the weather which is I hope going through a bad patch but I suspect has simply reverted to normal after an uncharacteristically dry and sunny May. We had visitors at the weekend and the rain started at the point where we had committed to go to the beach on the Saturday morning, and continued until we dropped them off at the train station on Sunday afternoon. Since then it has stopped occasionally – usually to lure us out of the house or kid us into putting some washing on – but it is never long before the clouds regather themselves and resume the deluge. This morning dawned misty and continued with the sort of steady rain and gusts of wind that signal a determination to go on all day. I did get as far as choosing a particularly light patch of rain, putting on my shoes and trying to nerve myself up to get out the bike and head off, but the other half took pity on me and gave me a lift down to the shop instead. I sense a slippery slope ahead, and that’s not just the run down into Papershop Village, either. If I can’t get on my bike just because it’s raining then I’m not going to do much cycling at all around here.

Still, this particular cloud did have one silver lining. Coming back from the shop we found a tree down and a dapper but rather frail elderly couple (she in a tweed skirt and pearls, he in a dashing hat) attempting to move it out of the way. With the other half there,the four of us managed to shift it out of the road (it was quite a small tree) and, our good deed done for the day, we headed home hoping it might atone somewhat for our contribution to global warming. And, to anyone sharing the sneaking thought I had – as I watched the ragged grey clouds fail to clear the local hilltops – that Scotland could do with a touch of global warming, shame on you. Global drying, though, that might be an idea…