Wednesday 1 June 2011

Feeling Groovy

At least, spades better than yesterday, which all in all seemed to be my worst day.

Flaming June.

So, Canada Post are poised to go on strike, at the one time when I am actually WAITING for a piece of mail which will mean I can then send one, and all of this is time sensitive.
And they really do seem unrealistic in their demands when I compare them with the great Royal Mail postal workers, and at a time when snail mail is at an all time low - which has been pointed out to them.
And really, we're in a recession, this is not the time to strike.

The whole 'killer cucumber' deal is not by any means funny, and yet, I can't help thinking how difficult it was to find any kind of veggies in Germany, especially ones that didn't begin with the letter K.
Still, I don't understand why farmers in Germany hasn't learnt from the experience of their sisters and brothers in California with the whole spinach e-coli thing from only a couple of years ago. Furthermore, it begs the question, what are German farmers feeding their cattle? Cattle that are fed corn instead of grass, have 80% more e-coli bacteria in their digestive tract, but why would this happen in Europe?

I'm feeling less groovy as the day wears on.

Summer may not yet have arrived, but summer TV has - ie sweet Fanny Adams on. Last night we watched the old Simon Schama 'History of Britain', the episode about the 14th Century, which has to rate as possibly the least enjoyable century to live in. Black Death, witch burnings because they were blamed for the Black Death, more Black Death, and the now fully grown ten-year old king getting all out of control and then quelling the Peasants Revolt, which, admittedly, was itself quite out of control.
Still, the upside of the Black Death was an end to serfdom, and if you survived it, you may have made out like a bandit in the inheritance game.

Britain has had the driest spring in over a 100 years or since 1990, depending on where you are, BC has had the wettest since records began. Such a pity we can't share weather a bit more.

In my garden, the onions are so far coming up a-plenty, enough for a whole tour-de-France I feel, but the spuds, not so much, and even the tommies, whilst numerous, are somewhat stunted so far. Be we are promised (threatened?) a long,hot summer, so they could rally.

I have finished another good read, 'Lyrics Alley' by Leila Aboulela. Seems like if you want to get something published these days, it'd better be about Africa. Lyrics Alley was set in Egypt and the Sudan, interesting stuff, I won't deny it. Now I have 'The Memory of Love' by Aminatta Forna, which is about Sierra Leone.
Good stuff.

Now I'm going to fade.

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