What's the opposite of Flaming June?

I blame the Government. Specifically, in this case (since we haven’t got all day), for saying that we were in the throes of a drought and banning the use of hosepipes in the South East. Not in East Anglia, by the way, apparently it’s the driest part of the British Isles, but our water board is able to supply us with enough water to keep us splashing away happily (but frugally, because we are responsible people and don’t waste the precious liquid) all summer.

Anyway, it has caused the wettest May on record. It is now June and it is still bloody cold. I’m sitting here with a coat on. This may be because I am unwisely wearing a tee-shirt rather than a sensible woolly jumper, but I hardly think I should need that either.

If the government had told the South East Water Board (whatever its official name is) to pull its finger out of whichever orifice it keeps it in, and instead use it to plug the myriad leaks in the elderly system of pipes that apparently waste enough water per day, expensively treated to drinking water standard, to fill Lake Windermere (not that you need to, it rains plenty up there), the mischievous deities of the weather would have had no need to be so provocative and the water board could have had a really sensible use for some of the many millions of pounds of profit currently residing in the bank.

This is, of course, the part of the country where the government also wants to build many, many more houses. They had a woman on the radio the other day who was being asked about the wisdom of this (I think she was an MP but I didn’t listen that carefully so she might have been a mere Spokesperson) and she said each person uses the same amount of water whether he/she lives alone or with others, so many houses each with one occupant would not use more water than fewer houses with several occupants. Amazingly, she was not challenged on this singularly inaccurate statement.

Absurd though it seems, I am going to go out in the rain now, to water the greenhouses. Cheerio, excuse the rant.