May 31st 2012 would have been Alfred Delller’s 100th Birthday: a magical evening in Boughton Aluph Church as Mark Deller presented a selection of his favourite recordings of his father, and that unique voice was heard again in the glorious venue which still hosts Stour Music, itself celebrating 50 Years of fabulous music-making this year. It has always been a source of sadness to me that I didn’t join The Deller Consort until after Alfred’s death – I would so love to have met him and heard him sing in person.

Flaming June in London has produced a new challenge to my gardening non-skills: remembering to bail out the containers on my balcony every morning before my drowning plants float off to finish the job in the ever-rising Thames.

Exactly how do I turn the simple task of evicting a few dead plants from my patio and replacing them with live ones into Armageddon? The plants are traumatised, there is compost all over the balcony and the sitting room carpet, there are ants in the kitchen and I am seriously unamused.
London-based Earthlings startled by sudden appearance of large yellow star in sky. City illuminated. Everybody advised to keep calm and carry on bailing out as the phenomenon is not expected to last more than a day.