Those who have little else to do but follow my jottings in a sister publication to this – Construction National – will have come across a number of alternatives being proposed to the HS2 as probably more economic in the conventional sense: not to mention more environmentally friendly. The despoiling of large tracts of countryside to allow trains to shoot down to London from the North West and Midlands (and probably ONLY in that direction) at 250mph is beloved of those who wish to knock an hour or so off the journey. That appears to be speed for its own sake.

The left-of-centre think tank New Economics Foundation is proposing the alternative of developing the cities and towns in the North and Midlands as economic entities by transforming the internal transport infrastructure rather than pointing the entire country even more towards London. The proponents of the re-opening of the trans-Pennine tunnel to enable a direct line across the country from Liverpool to Hull make much the same point.

These past couple of weeks I have been exercised by the issue of energy once more. It has been the time when the issue of fracking moved south.

An esteemed former colleague of mine sent me the well-travelled story of God and the Northerners – where God was explaining that in creating the Earth He put balance everywhere. Heat is balanced by the freezing cold; poverty with riches; conflict with harmony. And then there was the North of England, where He put the wisest, kindest, most talented people. And the balance? You guessed it – the "tossers" He put down South to govern us.

As if to bear out that epigram, Lord Howell – George Osborne’s father-in-law – wedged his foot even further in his mouth by claiming not to know east from west. His idea of an apology was to infer that he really meant North West when he said North East. That’s all right then, isn’t it?

The upset to the weather continues to be a major topic of conversation. After returning to the UK in the middle of an – albeit shortlived – heatwave a couple of weeks ago, I had the spectacular sight today of a lightning strike in the valley just a few hundred metres from where I am sitting. The storm is also dumping a few millimetres of rain onto the garden that has only just dried out.

That was shortly before I logged onto Twitter to see what’s going on and was informed of a “yellow warning” for rain in London and the South East. Nice to know the Met Office is on the ball.

And my Christmas cactus – that I rescued from certain death at a local supermarket five-and-a-half years ago – has decided to flower!

Discerning readers will have noticed a prolonged pause between the last post and this one. I have been sojourning on the Ionian island of Corfu, where a pleasant 38⁰ has been the norm while Britain has been sweltering in the high 20s and low 30s. Although the most northerly and westerly of all the Greek islands, Corfu does still have the common problem of water being a precious commodity. It also finds renewable energy a ready source. What was puzzling, though, is how the solar-heated water contrived to be hotter in the evening than during the day.

The fruit crop this year suffered from an early heatwave in April, while we were clearing snow, which meant the blossom came before there were sufficient bees around to pollinate it. A second crop is very late so will probably never come to anything. It’s another side to the freakish weather that some people still don’t acknowledge as climate change.

I have come home to find my shorts and sandals are still in demand and the spring trickling from the hillside onto my lawn via a land drain has finally dried up. Ironically, it means the wetland plants I scrounged from a neighbour with a similar problem to soak up the resulting ‘water feature’ now need watering!