Bright sunshine to a violent hailstorm and back again in 10 minutes

It just doesn’t feel like British weather but I expect we say that every year. And it is April. April showers and all that. However, we went from bright sunshine...

... to a violent hail storm with ear-splitting thunder - the garden was white over for a while, the hail stayed on the roof, until the storm turned to torrential rain and then passed on all within a few minutes.

It made the Jawbone Gang walk very muddy. The boots accumulate mud so you get taller and taller the further you go.

No sinister finds this time.

National Poetry Month

I’ve only just been told that it’s national poetry month so I thought I should mark the occasion with a couple of recommendations. I won’t go for the classics because everyone knows what they like in that respect. If I did, though, I'd mention Emily Bronte’s poetry, dark though it tends to be.

Nearer to home – geographically and timewise – how about physician-poet, Robert Jaggs-Fowler whose collection, A Journey with Time, is a delightful mix of styles and subject matter, light and serious.

Or this collection, Old Playgrounds, edited by Sue Knight, a family memoire spanning the decades from WWII.