Substack diary no.134: Saturday, 25th. April 2026

For a week now our morning weather has been calm, with a light or even negligible breeze, plenty of sunshine, very little cloud cover and no precipitation. ‘April showers’ seems, for this year at least, to be a thing of the past. Whilst no two April’s are the same – obviously – according to the historic records of the Met Office the phrase April Showers is justified as it is indeed more likely than not to be, well, showery. It would seem that a more apt phrase this year would be Blustery April as, if previous days are anything to go by, it will indeed be quite windy and boisterous by lunchtime.

I rather like the description of April in Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: ‘The month when trees unfold and the earth opens with new life’. It brought to mind the two large apple trees in my garden, both of which were severely cut back last autumn, but not quite pollarded. Despite that a few buds have managed to blossom, reminding me of the sheer vigour and beauty of relentless nature.

Referring to Brewer’s this morning reminds me of how much I enjoy looking things up in books – or periodicals or quality newspapers. The sheer pleasure of finding things out by myself, merging this with knowledge I already have and setting this into context with everything else I know is beyond doubt. These are only short snippets from my daily diary, but they are very much my own thoughts and, flawed though they might be from time to time, they are in a very real sense ‘me’. I hope I never have to engage with AI; it would feel as if I have not only cheated myself but that whatever I write would be somehow less ‘me’, and I must confess that I am a little alarmed by that.