Though I'm asleep for both sunrise and sunset at this time of year, it's always sad to know that they're starting to get closer together again. Some good weather to come, though, so make the best of it, eh? I wonder if it's summer lethargy that's turning various tradesmen into zombies. We've been chasing a couple of them for weeks now.
The garden is just so rewarding at this time of year, even if the weeds are growing faster than the stuff we want. The iris sibirica has almost finished flowering, so I've hacked off a couple of bits to give away to friends and neighbours. One called me over last weekend to show me one I'd given him last year or the year before. Flowering fit to bust - he was delighted. The penstemons are coming into flower now, and they will fill the garden with reds and pinks right through to the frosts. I potted up some seedling penstemons during the week, so we might just get some new colours from the mixed packet. Yet to start flowering are the achilleas (this year's seedlings), rudbeckias (some of our seed and some of Sutton's) and the echinaceas (last year's very slow seedlings, now showing signs of flowering for the first time). We appear to have about a dozen apples on our little tree, but since everything was late this year, I wouldn't be surprised to lose some in the June Drop. But in one experiment, comparing seed we saved last year with Mr Sutton's - same plant and variety - ours have done better, and a number of packets have been complete failures. Time to change seedsman, I think.
Hugely frustrating week in court. Not one of the several trials I was listed for was successful. We had last-minute changes of plea, prosecution withdrawals and dismissals. And worst of all, one matter has to go for re-trial because of crass ineptitude by an official. Can't say more about that one, other than that we were spitting feathers! Still, one nice plea from a familiar face up on a drunk and disorderly: 'on this occasion, sir, Not Guilty'.
The good news is that I've spent lots of time drinking tea and putting the world to rights with some thoroughly good and likeable people - one of whom, incidentally, chaired my second interview for the beakdom 7 years ago. More disruption to my tea and chat schedule is on the way, though. Under a pretty major programme of court closure now out for 'consultation', one of our three Courthouses is to close. I read this morning that the work is to be moved to Courthouses in two neighbouring bench areas, but that the Magistrates won't: logically, we'd henceforth have to be be in the rotas of all three benches. I suspect that MoJ really intends to move some of the Magistrates and will offer that as a concession to show that the 'consultation' has achieved something. In darker moments, I suspect we're moving towards a single bench for the whole county. It's an odds-on cert that Government would like to do away with us altogether, and replace us with stipes sitting alone. Just because lay magistrates have been around for close on 650 years and adjudge 95% of criminal cases in England and Wales doesn't mean it's the right system, after all. But at £100'000 a year in salary alone, multiplied by the number of stipes they'd need - our county alone would need a good 30 - I don't somehow see that threat as altogether imminent.
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