summer in april

Well April was bonny this year and May has been woeful so far hardly a dry day. Has not stopped progress in the garden right enough all the wood out the front has been chopped and piled up and I started raking down all the chips and burning them yesterday, the soil under the sawdust and pine needles is a rich dark colour so I am hoping it will be good enough for wild flower seeds to flourish in. We have lots more blue bells than ever before with the extra gaps in the trees.

Hopefully this week coming I will have a visit from a 12 ton excavator to rip up all the stumps along the North side, the driver thought he would manage to get them pulled out and dumped down behind my percolation area somewhere in half a day. I will get him to dig a wee drainage trench while he is there as the water is gathering in a low spot the way it is at the moment.

I would have to agree with the transport minister when he said this week that "we still have the culture of doing favours, the nod and the wink, the use of discretion and those type of things." and that a change in culture was needed. Its so apparent that deals are being done to feather nests here its almost laughable, it would be if it wasn't criminal. I'm guilty myself of doing deals, did a website last week for two loads of topsoil delivered and have been giving wood away "for a hand" with heavier jobs. Maybe I need to get into politics.

Bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst and her 'Rise Like a Phoenix' song won the Eurovision Song Contest for Austria last night, Ireland never made the final, because, well their song was rubbish and they had some twee dancers and a couple of bodran players that didn't look as if they could. The UK came 17th because their song wasn't quite as bad as the Irish one. Since the contest was launched in 1956, voting has often been tied to politics and the 2014 event was no exception, with the audience jeering countries that awarded points to Russia.

 The Giro d'Italia is underway, the cycle race takes riders from Armagh to Dublin and they have a lovely moist day for it with strong SW winds. Lovely if your a duck.