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The day started dull and wet, but this afternoon the sun has peeped through the clouds.  Let's hope it stays dry, as my son has promised to go up on the roof and do some grouting on our chimney.  Not as bad as it sounds, as the thatchers are still busy working on our (semi-detached) neighbour's roof and have put up scaffolding everywhere, which he has the permission of the thatchers and our neighbour to use over the Bank Holiday weekend.  In the meantime there is thatch everywhere, on our flat roofed extension and in our garden, not to mention in our little lane.  My husband says he will be putting it in the compost bin. They do come around and sweep up from time to time, but it gets trodden into the house, which is annoying.  The last time the neighbour's house was re-thatched the thatcher fell off the roof and was quite badly injured.  He wasn't using scaffolding, just ladders.

I wouldn't want a thatched cottage, particularly a Grade 11 listed one.  There are too many rules and regulations about the frequency of having your chimney swept, the smallest amount of work done on the house and the specified tradesmen you have to use.  Although we are semi-detached somehow our half of the building is not listed and we have a slate roof, not thatch.

Heavy rain last night and thunderstorms for some, so some of our road are flooded again.  We had to take a longer alternative route to the nearest town to do our weekly shop today. 

We're off to vote while there is a fairly dry spell before it starts again later in the day.  We only have to vote for a Police Commissioner this time, but will be interested to see the various results around the country, especially from the Mayoral elections.   

It's always really interesting to hear personal experiences, Rena.

It was mentioned earlier that some of the PoWs chose to remain in the UK rather than return to their homeland. Several years ago I was asked to help our vicar with a reading that he wanted to give in German at the funeral of a German man (I used to be a teacher of German) and to talk to his sister, who had come over from Germany for the funeral, but who spoke no English.

She told me that her late brother had been recruited into the German army as a boy of 16 in the later stages of the war and had soon been taken prisoner and brought to England.  The family had lived in what became East Germany and the sister fled when the Russians came.  Her parents said that they were too old to flee with her and they would have to take whatever was coming to them.  They were sent to East Berlin and the sister eventually reached Stuttgart, where another sister lived.  The brother said he didn't want to return to a conquered Germany, where his family were scattered around and chose to stay in England for the rest of his life.  The parents eventually died and the sister was able to bring them to a grave in Stuttgart, where the other sister was already  buried.  She was determined to bring her brother back to the family grave, too, "so that the family could be together once more", she said.