I sound like Lee Marvin

Hello, everyone. I see it's a nice sunny morning here at the Gin Palace, which makes it all the more ironic that I am hiding inside avoiding the damp air.

I stayed at home on Friday. For the first time I can remember, I was unable to get warm at work on Thursday. I ended up sitting in the office wearing my scarf and spent the lunchtime curled up trying to keep warm. I don't normally get colds like this; it's been very strange but largely gone again now. I was intending to go to work today and got up at the usual time, but the more I moved around the more my chest got bubbly and manky. Normally if it's going to do that it does it while you're lying down at night, but this time it seems to have happened after I got up. Anyway, I reckon for the amount of time I take sick, the office can spare me another day especially as the division is winding down. They don't need me and my asphalt lungs in the office today. Tomorrow will be quite early enough.

Whatever the overall level of drought is still in the south east, I can safely say that the swamp we call our back garden is no longer a desert. Quite the opposite, in fact. A month ago I was worried that the ground was bone dry dust if you dug a few inches below the top surface that had taken the little rain we'd had to that point. Now I am concerned that the roots will rot because the ground is sodden. There seems to be no happy medium at the moment. Furtle's attempt at growing sunflowers seems to have fallen at the first fence with the sheer volume of water that has turned the potting compound into a small Irish bog. We have some more growing in the green house* and hopefully with a bit of support they will take when we transplant them. I may dig a bit of sand into the pots to increase drainage.

Today however, I am going to research chicken casserole for tonight's feast.



*Greenhouse may be overstating it: it's a set of shelves on a metal frame with a zip up clear PVC cover, but it does the job with seedlings etc

Choppers and stuff

The middle of this week sees the start of a big security exercise for the Olympics, which will see - according the the Beeb at any rate - surface-to-air-missiles based in East London, though it has not yet been decided whether they will actually be deployed during the games themselves.

At a security briefing it was also announced this week's exercise will include:

The berthing of HMS Ocean at Greenwich, with a number of Royal Navy Lynx helicopters on board
The deployment of HMS Bulwark and other ships to Weymouth Bay and Portland Harbour
The basing of RAF Typhoon fast jets at RAF Northolt, west London
Helicopters carring snipers also based at RAF Northholt
Royal Navy airborne early warning helicopters and RAF Puma helicopters at a Territorial Army centre in Ilford, east London
The operation of fast jets and helicopters over Greater London and the Home Counties
13,500 military personnel will be involved in protecting the games

Interestingly, we have a TA Centre locally and they are holding an open day on next Monday's Bank Holiday. There will be a couple of Apache helicopters stationed there for the summer and the locals are being invited to go and take a peek. Clearly this is an exercise in community engagement, since the helicopters will make a hell of a racket as they come and go and there exists the possibility (even if remote) of damage to gardens from down drafts when they come in low. It's not likely to have any effect on the Gin Palace because they are a few hundred yards away and Stratford and the Olympic site is off in the other direction anyway. We'll hear and see them I imagine, but not have hurricanes whipping through the mangetouts.

Whatever, I think ellefurtle and I may well slope across and take a peek at them.

I know that in this edgy post-9/11 world we should not be surprised, but it is really very sad that this sort of security has to be contemplated to cover what is meant to be a celebration of international co-operation, athleticism and sportsmanship. Just highlights how far below the ideal everything falls, really.