May's end

May left, as it arrived, in the rain! It's been amazingly wet this year, and while rain is good for the garden, you can have too much of a good thing, having previously rejoiced with the rain I'm now feeling less happy as my poor seedlings are getting a real battering from the torrential downpours that have been passing over every couple of days.

It's also left Viriamu frustrated as he's just received a shiny new cement mixer and he's itching to mix cement! But with all the rain, even the best laid plans have to be changed! Guest-wise it was also a busy old month, for the down season, with a steady trickle of guests and so many holidays that we spent most of the time stuck at home with the kids (there were 5 bank holidays, a week of official school holidays and a teacher training day, so Matotea spent just 13 days at school).

 We also had the annual Protestant 'mei' celebrations around Ascension, here it's a three week long celebration, another display of village pride, each sunday one of our three village hosts a marathon of religious fervor with services throughout the weekend and a midnight vigil on the sunday, the singing and hats are truly impressive. It's also the time to spruce up the village, everyone gets busy white-washing walls and cleaning the house, and most importantly (for the church) it's the time where everyone digs deep to in their pockets to subsidize the local church.