I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that, after a very dry winter, it had finally started to rain. Well, as I look out of my window today (on this cold, grey holiday morning), the rain continues to come down. At this point it’s not really a bad thing for our vineyards, albeit that after such a dry spell, much of the initial rainfall simply runs off the surface and makes little impression. It will take some time before the water table is restored. With temperatures forecast for no more than 13/14°C (55/60°F) this week, it occurs to me that our calendar seems to have fallen out of sequence this year. Reversing the months of March and April would make far more sense as far as a logical progression is concerned – March being much dryer and warmer than April. Anyway, whatever happens next the only thing we ask for is a period of warm, dry weather for the flowering.

As an aside, and in the wake or the recent Titanic centenary, I just wanted to pass on a bit of useless information for the next time that you’re playing Trivial Pursuit. Did you know that the International Distress Signal Mayday, Mayday, Mayday actually has nothing to do with 1st of May (or any other day in May for that matter)? It quite simply originates from the French phrase “m’aider”, which means “help me”. Perhaps slightly oddly, the phrase was the idea of an English air traffic controller based at Croydon Airport near London, when, back in the 1920’s much of the air traffic flew between London and Paris.

The Mayday signal was (and still is) used on VHF radio, and therefore was never used on Titanic, which relied on Morse code for signalling. At that time there were however, two different distress codes used by Morse operators – ‘CDQ’ used by the Marconi company – CQ again derived from the French word “Secours” (Help). The letter D, stood for Distress. The second code (subsequently adopted by all) was SOS, created by the German Government in the early 1900’s. The letters were chosen as they were simple, both to recognise and remember – ‘Save Our Souls’ is simply a mnemonic and is not the reason that they are used.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that, after a very dry winter, it had finally started to rain. Well, as I look out of my window today (on this cold, grey holiday morning), the rain continues to come down. At this point it’s not really a bad thing for our vineyards, albeit that after such a dry spell, much of the initial rainfall simply runs off the surface and makes little impression. It will take some time before the water table is restored. With temperatures forecast for no more than 13/14°C (55/60°F) this week, it occurs to me that our calendar seems to have fallen out of sequence this year. Reversing the months of March and April would make far more sense as far as a logical progression is concerned – March being much dryer and warmer than April. Anyway, whatever happens next the only thing we ask for is a period of warm, dry weather for the flowering.

As an aside, and in the wake or the recent Titanic centenary, I just wanted to pass on a bit of useless information for the next time that you’re playing Trivial Pursuit. Did you know that the International Distress Signal Mayday, Mayday, Mayday actually has nothing to do with 1st of May (or any other day in May for that matter)? It quite simply originates from the French phrase “m’aider”, which means “help me”. Perhaps slightly oddly, the phrase was the idea of an English air traffic controller based at Croydon Airport near London, when, back in the 1920’s much of the air traffic flew between London and Paris.

The Mayday signal was (and still is) used on VHF radio, and therefore was never used on Titanic, which relied on Morse code for signalling. At that time there were however, two different distress codes used by Morse operators – ‘CDQ’ used by the Marconi company – CQ again derived from the French word “Secours” (Help). The letter D, stood for Distress. The second code (subsequently adopted by all) was SOS, created by the German Government in the early 1900’s. The letters were chosen as they were simple, both to recognise and remember – ‘Save Our Souls’ is simply a mnemonic and is not the reason that they are used.