My new wife commented the other day that summer seems to have shifted forward three months. These days, it’s lovely between about March and June, but then horrible between July and August, the months where in the long-gone days of my youth I seem to remember it being quite sunny.

I floated this meteorological proposition to some colleagues today, as we looked out at the storm lashing Ashton-under-Lyne. The response was that the lovely April weather I was referring to was what has always been known as “spring,” and that all that’s happened is that summer has disappeared.

Whatever’s going on, at least it’s cleared up now and I am free to resume the summer-evening surveying that local Lib Dems have been doing across Prestwich and Whitefield. It’s been great meeting lots of people, almost none of whom are spewing the type of anti-coalition bile I am terrified of when reading the letters page of the Bury Times (written almost exclusively, I have learned over the years, by politically active people from the various parties rather than genuine members of the public).

It’s all remarkably pleasant, in fact, and it’s good to be able to hear people’s problems and respond positively like good councillors should.

So I’ll be doing that in a bit.

All this rain is slightly ironic because tonight is also the night when my family expands by precisely one bag full of tiny little fish, all of whom would feel quite at home in the puddles outside. I thought that my recent wedding should be the prelude to some familial expansion, and so we’ve decided to add to the cat by purchasing some fish, and storing them in a (hopefully) cat proof tank. It’s all a prelude to the hens which we’re hoping to get for our soon-to-be zoo-like abode in the autumn.

I used to keep goldfish when I was a kid. I remember the drill was to either win one at the fair, or nip down to the pet shop and return with one in a polythene bag. Things have moved on somewhat now, as my trip to Pets @ Home tonight will be my third attempt to persuade them to let me have a goldfish.

The first time I went in to buy the tank they said that it would be wise to let the water settle first. I returned two days later with the sample of water they asked me to provide (!) so that they could test it. It passed the test, but they said that I had to wait 72 hours to let the filter bed in, and they still wouldn’t give me my fish. So I am hoping that tonight I will be able to make it third time lucky.

I feel slightly guilty that I am clearly unfit to look after even a goldfish, apparently, although slightly baffled because the last one I owned (when I was a child) lived for about 8 years.

Anyway, enough about my rollercoaster life. It’s time to go out surveying.

Rick