Well it had to come, somehow I had persuaded myself that because we had such a terrible beginning to the year, with weather I had left England to avoid, that the glorious summer would last forever or at least till I got bored with it. But here I sit in the downstairs office with the rain hammering on the glass roof over the staircase. I am writing because it is so inclement I have not got the will to wheel my shiny new wheelbarrow to the courtyard in front of the garage and collect the supply of logs for the week.

Not that I mind the rain, being English I am impermeable, it is just the mental adjustment I have to make to winter. I have often analyzed my poor reaction to the change of season, which I am forever being told should be one of expectation of its winter joys, frosts and sunny cold days and all that stuff, but in my seventy second year I feel as I did when I was twelve. I hate winter and just about all there is to do with it.

There we are my grouse for the year.

Lets have a look for a picture of sunnier times to cheer me up.

there thats better………..Muscat is just over the horizon.