Rainy Bank Holiday Weekend

There was welcome relief from the droughty conditions this weekend; well, of course there was: it was a Bank Holiday and as any Brit knows, that means rain!


A contingent of the New Forest Harley Owners Group arrived for a visit on Sunday, a great opportunity to look at some wonderful vehicles, as they parked outside the front of the house which glammed us up a bit!

It was sad that the summer thunder-drenching arrived just as the Bath College Gamelan were setting up for their performance in the cloister, but the hardy visitors who had evaded the storms were very grateful for the performance and enjoyed being up-close to such beautiful instruments and music.



(sorry, dreadful photo)

By contrast, today brought drier, warmer weather, and our visitors were treated to another free concert, this time from the young musicians of Kingswood School in Bath. Three-to-tea concerts are free to garden visitors, and provide an opportunity for local performers to enjoy playing in a beautiful venue, after which everything stops for tea.

The rain also brought good news for green energy enthusiasts as the river is back up so our hydro-electric plant is running more efficiently again after a few weeks with a low river. And of course, gardeners across the region will be enjoying a respite from watering those freshly bedded-out plants. Oh, and the Japanese cherries are out.


Still, roll on summer – let’s get the warm weather back soon please!

100 MWh reached, rain still falling but opera continues undaunted

It is odd to think how much store we put in milestone numbers, which of themselves mean very little - after all, does the 1,000,000th customer bring anything that the previous 999,999 did not?  Of course not, they are just another customer.  But with smiles all round, we're still going to be pleased that the hydro plant has made it to 100 Mega Watt Hours, thanks to the rather determined rain we've been having lately.

Cleaning the screen through the wet season has been relatively easy, which is a relief.  On the other hand, since the hydro party, which was reported fairly widely in the press (which was nice), we had some problems with the bottom bearing.  When I say that we had some problems, I mean that the entire bearing unit had to be replaced.  It is thought by the experts on our installation team to have been of faulty construction, however we shall see... if it happens again we shall know if there is a more fundamental problem.  Fingers are very firmly crossed.

Whilst we have been making power thanks to the rain, the Iford Arts season has been suffering from this bout of British drizzle.  It would, however, take quite a tempest to dampen the spirits of a stoical English audience watching Mozart's comic opera Die Entfürung aus dem Serail.  Thankfully all the performances are in the cloister, under cover, and Bill Bankes-Jones production brings a delightful warmth to the story.  On the 22nd June the sun graced us with its presence, reminding us of the golden light which bathes the valley on a beautiful evening (before clouds promptly returned for the rest of the week!).

The Seraglio princesses and their security guards take the scenic route to the cloister (June 22nd):

Cracking up!

It's going to take a lot more than just a bit of rain to solve this - and it's only just the second week in April!

Rain, rain, come again

Well, for a "band of heavy showers moving through" I don't think that was really up to much.  We're very, very short of water and last night we can barely have had more than about 20 minutes of rain.  Oddly the river this morning is actually lower than it was yesterday, which raises in my mind questions about who might be extracting water upstream.  Just asking.

I wrote an article on the need to think about water management, both a local and national level, for www.thegoodwebguide.co.uk.  You can find it here:  http://bit.ly/HTjWxt

Photos from the Jazz

Rob Coles, photographer extraordinaire, has sent through these images from last weekend's jazz events.  We particularly liked the image of the umbrellas, above.

Above: Anna, front of house manager, radio in one hand, phone in the other.

Below: Jim Hart mesmerises with his vibraphone

 Above: not to be deterred by the rain, the plucky English take to an old oak tree for shelter

Below: Tina May wows the audience 

 

 Above: Digby Fairweather

Below: Digby Fairweather's Half Dozen

Below: yours truly preparing oil lamps with JH to light to route to the carpark.

All images copyright Robert Coles