Returning to our normal program…

The weather has gone grim again - rain, lightning, overnight, and forecast to stay so into the holiday weekend (natch). And next week I'm going on a cycling holiday near La Rochelle, and the weather there is currently following the same dismal trend. Cycling is fun, but cycling in the rain is just discomfort for discomfort's sake, a choice between getting cold and wet from the outside or hot and wet from the inside if you wear waterproofs.

Normally I pack silk shirts for such a holiday - pack down small, dry themselves almost instantly - but these days - i.e. since C&A stopped trading in the UK - they can't be had for love nor money. Even gentlemen's outfitters like Burtons have gone so downhill that they only seem to have naff streetwear aside from the suits.

I guess that I'll have to try and fit in a flying shopping spree around my overnight stay in Paris.

Meanwhile, the garden is just full of bloom - cherry just past its height, tulips there though past their best, but the three apple trees now almost fully out, lilac coming, choicea out, forsythia and bachelor's buttons almost gone. And the lawn needs mowing again but won't have the chance until after I get back.