the AGM approaches

It rained again.  Encore.  The rain it is raining in all the day long-oh.  I am like the king of a rainy country.  The rain it raineth every day.  Rain, rain, go away.

I did my tax return online.  Afterwards I felt cheated, in so far as I did not experience a state of transcendental bliss and utter relief, as promised on Classic FM, but was just mildly narked at having to write the tax man a cheque for ninety pounds.  Still, at least it's done.  I am one step ahead of the Systems Administrator, who is leaving the whole horrible process until the eleventh hour.

Then I made cheese straws for tonight's beekeepers' AGM.  The committee thought that if we offered nibbles it might create more of a party atmosphere, if not act as an actual incentive to attend.  The Chairman seemed to have been thinking of buying in a few pizzas (I don't know why given he makes us fabulous cakes for our committee meetings) but was outvoted.  I am rather proud of my cheese straws, and there was something in the Show Secretary's voice as she said that she would make some savoury tartlets that suggested that no members were going to be fed budget pizza on her watch.  I have got the makings of smoked salmon on brown bread to assemble before I go out, though it is only Value salmon, because I wasn't feeling that generous to my fellow beekeepers.

There is the theoretical possibility of my being ousted as Treasurer, but nobody else has expressed any interest in the job, so I expect it is mine for another year.  No-one has shown any desire to take up the reins as Membership Secretary either, which is problematic, since the existing one is adamant that after many years of service to the association she is no longer willing to continue. Where are the volunteers of yesteryear?  I can see that in the south east many of them are stuck with long commutes, or working two jobs to make ends meet, or minding their grandchildren while their children work seventy hour weeks, but I fear that quite a few of them are happy to sit at home watching Strictly and Downton.  And yet we read that more people than ever live by themselves, and that some of them are lonely.

The SA did look through the two boxes of paperbacks, and agreed that most of them might as well go to the PDSA bookstall, and that the paperwork relating to the former boat could go in the bin, apart from the final bill of sale.  It's probably a good idea to keep that, so that if she is ever found floating around the Medway as a ghost yacht, perhaps infested with cannibal rats, we will have proof that she is no longer anything to do with us.