Crowded Out

For years I have moaned on about terrible, wet weather and hardly mentioned sunshine or pleasant temperatures; however now I am to be found out, for as part of the over complex "monitoring" of the Great Hydro Scheme of Trollaigh there is a daily requirement to comment on weather; and I see from my February records that there were actually 3 dry days around the middle of the month; so it has not rained every single day which is as I remember it. In our age of quangos and ridiculous Political Correctness part of this hydro monitoring is that I am obliged to give written notice to the authorities if I plan to go away on holiday and the daily rituals of equipment checks are not to be observed; all this euro inspired nonsense is doubly galling as we honest northerners genuflect to Brussels whilst our Mediterranean cousins dodge their taxes, their responsibilities, ignore Brussels and live in warm sunshine.
I have been mulling over why this winter has not seemed so peaceful as others in the past and I realise that the reason is that instead of our normal quiet hibernation until Easter all the Argyll Glens are positively buzzing with people. Mining Companies have been drilling for valuable metals; New Age gold panners and prospectors camp along the river banks in faded Tepees with blacken smoke stacks; fencers enclose great hectares of land; machines prepare for new forests; foreign planters crawl about in their hundreds adding even more thousands of trees to the landscape. Hopefully this "need for greed" movement will move on in a few months and by next winter we will be left in peace whilst some other poor buggers are disturbed by an invasion of capitalists spreading their fumes,carbon and litter about a pristine countryside which frankly can manage fine without them.
As spring approaches and we start to think of long days in the garden the future seems a positive place and although the back and the bones creak a bit I think that dearest Dottie and I are going to enjoy our summer and I hope some of you will join us. You can avoid the risk of being coerced into hard work by bringing a chilled bottle or two which will definitely provide a pleasant diversion! Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.