In case mother nature has forgotten, this is the 29th of May, nearly the beginning of June, when one usually expects to connect with the end of spring and the beginning of summer. Woolly jumpers disappear till the next wintry season and out come the lovely coloured, lightweight garments and cotton tops, cropped trousers, summery skirts and little jackets or pretty cardigans. The menfolk have their lighter weight dress code as well.

Here though - the north wind doth blow and we shall have snow....

It is unbelievable. We have northerly Arctic winds and when we go out we are muffled up to the gills. I cheer myself up with an orange padded jacket and a loopy, sienna brown, chenille scarf.

I read during the week that gossiping is good for you. It is said that a good gossip brings people closer together in their negative attitudes

Those clever well-paid doctors have found a great distraction from the negative publicity that hurtled in their direction recently; they are gunning for alterntive therapies - the NHS should not be spending money on these non-proven non-alopathic approaches. What are they afraid of, their own tricks of the trade might be rumbled? What arrogance to think that theirs is the only gold standard in medicine.

Not everything that involves people can be proved by quantitative research alone, there are too many unkown dynamic variables, many layers of life that could not be documented in quantitative data form.

They cry "there is no evidence for its worth". Those alopathic doctors are blinkered, nay, blind. They choose to be. There is evidence and in the case of acupuncture, about 2000 years' worth of it. Scientific purists do not like anecdote, they don't like personal experience that's brushed aside as 'the placebo affect'; how offensive. Let them prove it by their own stated standards. It would, no doubt, not be too difficult to pick holes in their research methodology.

The polemic they have raised, beautifully seduces the media away from the storm over the doctors' pay deal; its high cost to the NHS is totally masked. We, the public, are distracted from the core problem, the spiralling cost to the NHS of doctors' pay with as yet, unequal returns to the system.

(Sources include BBC radio 4 am and pm programmes.)

I saw the field behind our house had been ploughed; this field has supplied fresh vegetables such as cabbages and cauliflowers to the farmer and his workers. In the case of his sheep and neighbours, they have been supplied with the nutrition found in swedes (rutabagas), these were mentioned in an earlier post.

The freshly dug field signals that the long season of lambing is just about over. The farmer and lambers now get a rest from 'maternity' night shift. There are three rotations of lambing with three different breeds of sheep, two known breeds, Texels and North Country Cheviots, and a cross-breed. Lambing will start all over again about November or December. Meantime, the new lambs are growing strong and big.

It will be interesting to see what has been planted in the ploughed field, if anything, or, whether there will be fresh green blades of grass on which the growing and strengthening lambs and the ewes will graze.

Just a note folks, to let you know this blog will be quiet for a couple of weeks.

I am testing out my packing arrangements to see if they will work with my smaller suitacase. If not, at least I will know what to pack in the larger one.

I came across the following; I do not know who the author is but I thought it so delightfully meaningful, that I would like to share it with people who may not know this tale.

CRACKPOTS ARE BEAUTIFUL!

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."

The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?" "That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them."

"For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.

You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.

Tonight, I received an email that bothered me for two reasons.

First, I am long enough in the tooth to be wary of warning emails that do not give reputable cross-reference sources for so-called viruses that are supposed to be doing the rounds. they are as bad as chain letters and spam mail of a virulent kind in my opinion. However, there are well-meaning people around who will forward such warnings to everyone they know, whether it be a knee jerk reaction to protect their friends, simple ignorance, or both.

Someone I know, tends to fall for such scams from time-to-time without fail. No doubt she has received the warnings from equally well-meaning people. In the past, I have tried to alert this friend to such hoaxes and advise on ascertaining the veracity of any so-called warnings she receives. Unfortunately, she has taken the advice as a personal slight. A kinder, warmer person you could not wish to meet but she is a sensitive soul. I have decided not to say anything this time, though it is likely, I believe, that someone else will.

Meantime, as we do have friends in common, I hope that any of my emails with a particular subject line do not get deleted.

Gmail, courtesy of google, has started to organise my filing. I have had various emails, on similar subjects I grant you, by different authors and sent on different dates, all of them visually 'paper clipped' together, meaning I cannot separate them off for archiving (to use Google's own terminology). I received a standard reply to my query about this quirky state of affairs. It was not at all useful.

Horror!!! I hope while google is doing my filing it is not also mistaking archiving for spam notifications as well. I did accidentally click the spam button on a couple of mails; I contacted Google to find out how to reverse the situation - I still wait to find out. Thank heavens, Google is not my only mail provider.

People in techie groups who extoll the virtues of Google's facilities plus all the add-ons they can use to make a suite online, concern me. My experiences so far, suggest that wildly favouring web-based facilities to the exclusion of all else will. undoubtedly lead to relatively basic but crucial difficulties.

I am not convinced either, that operating a personal information management system on the web is wise. That is what the Google calendar offers. It has nice clean lines but do I really want my personal appointments 'webbed'? In this day and age where privacy seems to have changed its definition and the goal posts are constantly moved by the amorphous beings (and others who are more visible) who manage us, I can understand the disposable value of good old fashioned paper and pen/pencil for my aide-memoire.

The ewes were calling to their lambs tonight but one call stood out from all the others. It had a rich really deep throated timbre with enormous projection of sound. Could this be a Paul Robson of the sheep world?

Whatever happened to the signs of Spring and hopes eternal we had over the last two days? Having had a day today, of real cold, supported by even colder winds with heavy, heavy rain, perversely, there is a dry golden evening. I have not ventured out to test the temperature, it is better methinks, to enjoy the view from a warm vantage point.

Through the window I can observe a green field quite close by that has scatterings of ewes and lambs; they are sedate. It is a quirky thought, but is it too chilly to gambol as lambs are wont to do? It is still too soon for shearing here; keeeping close by mum's coat is bound to be cosy.

The farmer is dishing out plenty of nourishment to the ewes whose lambs are young enough to be feeding at the udder, and at the same time as feeding the flock with his home grown swedes, the immediate neighbours, including us, receive a bounty of nourishing swedes too.

The flavour of the swedes (USA = rutabagas) is remarkable and they are not readily available in grocery shops. They are an old fashioned variety from which seeds were preserved. Their thick skin is more purple than brown; it is essential to generously peel them. The best taste description I can offer is that these swedes are sweet and fruity. They are enjoyable as a crunchy raw snack, in moderation I would add, but as a cooked vegetable, roasted, boiled or mashed, they are delicious too.