I really should try to find the mental energy to write here more than once a month, but meanwhile here is a summary of the recently-finished May. It was a good month. Any month with three bank holidays in it can’t be anything other than a good month!

Of course, bank holidays usually mean crap weather, but the May Day holiday was OK. We took our motorbikes down to Hastings to join another tens of thousands of bikers for the traditional rally. The second bank holiday was a bit miserable, but not nearly as miserable as the Saturday of the coronation that it was all in aid of. The third bank holiday of the month was OK though. I spent that day on the bike again, going up to Norwich to see our new grandson.

One reason why I am a lot more aware of the weather these days is that I am keen to get out and have a go with the drone I got for my birthday last year. I have had a number of reasons (excuses?) for not flying it so far. First of all, we live in the Gatwick no-fly zone so can’t just pop across to the local playing fields but will need to go out on a bit of a journey and find a decent place in another area. I thought I would wait until I had a couple of spare batteries to make a trip worthwhile, and by the time I got them it was winter and always cold and wet, and remained so all the way up to this month. Finally we have some consistently dry weather, plus longer days so going out after work is a possibility as well. Unfortunately we have also had quite a bit of wind so it doesn’t actually feel warm, and my drone app always tells me that it is too windy to fly. I am going to go all out to actually fly in June.

Apart from not flying my drone, and going on a few motorbike trips – about 800 miles in the month – what else has been going on? Not a lot really.

I read another 11 books during the month. 10 fiction and 1 autobiography. It puts me well on target for reading 100 books in the year. With all that reading I didn’t get round to watching much TV. Only one film and one TV show – apart from the regular stuff like Pointless and TOTP replays. Having read a couple of the Michael Connelly ‘Lincoln Lawyer’ books I decided to watch the Bosch series on Amazon, which is based on another series of Connelly books. I Enjoyed it enough that I binge-watched two series (or do we call them seasons now?) and have another six to look forward to. I know I will probably end up reading the books, and are thoroughly spoiling them by watching the show first, but I can live with that.

I added another few LPs to the growing vinyl collection, but in the very last week of the month found myself wondering if I have been wasting my time and money on records. Basically, my ears were playing up a bit. I thought I had probably made whatever it is worse with my 300-mile motorbike ride on the Monday and hoped it might settle down afterwards, but on Tuesday I realised I had woken up effectively deaf in one ear. When it was no better on Wednesday I called my GP and he advised me to go to A&E just in case it was something that required a scan. It turned out to be nothing too scary. Just a massive plug of hardened wax impacting my eardrum. Eardrops should sort that out, even if it takes a few days. For now I am still half deaf and hating it, but should soon be able to properly hear the new Yes LP I bought.

Otherwise, a good month. No alcohol. No car driving at all. A fair bit of walking and another fifty quid win from the Premium Bonds for the third month in a row.