The Rain It Raineth Every Day

Monday. 3.20 p.m. The weather has changed considerably. This is quite normal for British weather. One day, dry and sunny, the next, pouring with rain. Which it's doing at the moment. If you could hear, which is obvious because you can't, it is raining quite hard. It rained earlier this afternoon and we had quite a heavy downpour around fifteen minutes later, it was dry and sunny, almost as if it hadn't been raining. As the proverb states quite clearly 'nay cast a clout 'til May be out.' Now, whether that refers to the month of May or may the shrub, I don't know. Shakespeare mentions May in the Sonnet 18, 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?/Thou art more lovely and more temperate./Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,/And summer's lease hath all too short a date.' As I've discussed in an earlier blog post, Shakespeare uses many weather metaphors in his plays. King Lear and his Fool wander the blasted heath in a howling gale. Feste mentions rain  in Twelfth Night (the title of this post is from one of his songs). The Three Witches in Macbeth talk about ' . . .   foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air.' I could go on.

I am attempting to find some sort of doggy care for Alfie so that I can visit Worcester to see my grandchildren. As you should have read in an earlier post, I didn't go to Worcester as arranged on Friday. I don't want him to go into a kennel. The thought of him being put in a cage upsets me, and it would really upset him. I would prefer him to go to someone who would care for him in their home. I have discovered people who do this through a search online. Having read their requirements and the cost (approximately £25-£30 a day.) they also require owners to have their dogs vaccinated or the vaccines they already have topped up. Further enquiries I have made reveal that this costs around £75, covering kennel cough. It's because you have to protect your dog and other dogs that may be cared for. Just another expense. 

Tuesday. 6.10 a.m. Another mild morning, but not as warm as it has been lately.

2.05 p.m.The excitement is palpable! The bunting is up. A pile of cakes has appeared in the community kitchen. Tea and cakes are ready for the Platinum Jubilee tea party. What more can I say? Nothing. It all gets underway in one hour! Just fancy!

I'm not sure, but I think I might have just heard a thunderclap. Or something very similar to the sound of thunder. The weather is somewhat wet at the moment, so it might very well be thunder. 

4.50 p.m. We've just had the Platinum Jubilee tea party, Plenty of tea, sandwiches and cakes. HM Queen turned up (okay, it was one of the carers who comes into Dexter House, wearing a Queen mask. Funny. Yes. But slightly sinister. The sort of mask often used by bank robbers.  Also, there was a quiz, 19 questions about Her Majesty, and I won, the prize being a box of Thornton's chocolates. So, the second quiz I've won in two weeks. (Okay, the first one I was in a team.) But even so, not bad to have won, and all my reading of the history of the 20th century came in handy. 

12.35 p.m. I've been to Sainsbury's this morning. I have to say that I find it more than a little annoying that they had to move around many items which have been in the same position on the shelves for more or less all the time I have been shopping there, and now some bright spark seems fit to rearrange more or less everything and make it hard to find some things. What is the point of all this? It's just to annoy your local customers and drive them to probably shop elsewhere. There IS no point. Or, if you're going to do it, at least have some sort of sign up to tell you where a particular item has been moved to.

5.00. I've been into the shopping centre to get my hair cut at Central Barbers. I parked where I usually park and no sooner had I parked than the heavens opened and there was a heavy downpour. I, fortunately, had one of my Regatta jackets in the car, which I put on before walking into the shopping centre, but around two minutes later the rain had stopped, and the sun came out.  I had booked online yesterday so at least I knew I had an appointment, and it was paid. I was really surprised how busy it was in the centre. I imagine it's because it's half-term this week in Milton Keynes and the fact the Queen's Platinum Jubilee festivities are this week. A definite sort of atmosphere in the air. Thank goodness, because the country needs some sort of light-heartedness after two years of crazy lockdowns. 

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May . . . etc etc

You 've probably noticed how often the weather makes an appearance in these posts. It's no wonder, really. The weather does seem to play a central role in life in this country. But today is somewhat overcast and dull. The past few days have been quite warm and pleasant, but the weather has to begin miserable as we head into the weekend. As I look out of the window into what is our garden the trees along the Redway that runs along behind this house are swaying in quite a strong wind. Well, as Shakespeare says in one of his sonnets, 'Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May' and how right he was.  Then he goes on to say 'And summer's lease hath all to short a date.' Yes, when you think that we're only likely to have a few warm days to even call 'summer.' This all comes from Sonnet number 18.  Well, it just shows, in this, the 400th anniversary of his death, that his words can have as much relevance today as they did when they were originally written.  I expect the weather had just as central a part to play in his day as it does today. Probably even more so, particularly in Stratford-Upon-Avon, which was an agricultural centre and weather would be important as far as making sure that the crops were growing well to feed the population of the town. I think 'May' refers to the bushy plant called hawthorn and has white flowers. I've just Googled it and I've discovered that it can be used to help reduce cholesterol in your blood as well as being used in medication to lower blood pressure and prevent heart failure. Amazing how you come across facts such as this when you're on the internet. I think it's called serendipity. The quote was used by H.E. Bates for his book 'The Darling Buds of May.' I have a link, as this television series starred Pam Ferris, alongside David Jason, and I worked with her in 'rep' when she was in the company at Ipswich Theatre in the mid 1970's and I was a D.S.M. there.

 The grass needs cutting again and I'm putting this job off until next week. It does take quite a lot of motivation for me to drag the mower out of the shed and then unreel the cable so I can plug the contraption in and then actually cut the grass. But it can wait. It looks like rain again.

The Rainy Month Of May

 Well, May is very nearly over. It doesn't seem possible that in just a few days we'll be into June. The weather has been really awful. Today it's still overcast and really quite gloomy. Shakespeare put it perfectly when he said, in Sonnet 18:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

And every fair from fair sometime declines

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

Plenty of May in bloom around here, and also plenty of rough winds to shake it! We've had such a mixture of weather, from really sunny and warm, to windy and wet. 

 

There again, the saying: 'N'er cast a clout til May be out' also comes to mind  . . .

 

Too true . . .