St Swithun's sign for the 'Nolympics'

We have had an unusually wet summer in England - so far.  Yes - even for England it has been wet, ever since the fateful day when the local authorities and water companies announced that we needed to have a hose-pipe ban -  or for American readers, that's a hose ban.

Since April, we have had the wettest drought on record.  Now as the Olympic games approaches, people around me have actually started hoping that yesterday's weather might be a good sign.  Yes really!

The reason is that yesterday was St Swithun's Day.  There is an tradition in olde-England that if it rains on St Swithun's Day it will rain for 40 days, and if not, then the weather will be much drier. 

I can't speak for the rest of the country, but here in my part of rural Oxfordshire it did not rain.  That is not to say that we had clear skies.  We saw the sun sometimes, but at a few times throughput the day it looked very much as though it was going to pour with rain.

As for me - I don't mind whether it rains through the Olympics or not.  I'm so disgusted at the amount of money squandered on them that I am past caring now.

Rumour has it, that for the amount spent by the UK government on the Olympics, they could have afforded to send everyone in the country to the Bahamas for a two-week holiday. I'm quite sure which option I would have preferred, but nobody asked me for my opinion.

Looking on the bright side:

• It is the rain that makes England green - I'm happy with that.
• The cultural benefits of the Olympics are apparently worth the cost.  Yeah - right!

Of course there is a technical term for this old wives tale, as has been shown by the observation that it rained for much of the day today.

Bo***cks!