Wind advisory

I became convinced fairly early on that there would be no rain today. Even so I was firmly parked inside the house. The National Weather Service issued a severe weather warning for straight line winds. It was in fact blowing very hard here but it never reached dangerous conditions, in my opinion. Except possibly dangerous as a cross wind for a person on a bicyle.

But around 1pm there was a noticeable diminishment of the howling and by about 2 I was feeling as though I should be riding. So out I went.

It was way too windy.

But I rode on anyway. There was only one time when I came out of the shelter of a building and caught a cross wind that nearly blew me over that it seemed even vaguely not a good idea. It was way too windy but it was fun being out there, just riding along. I concede that I did ride past one tree that had been blown over by the wind. However it did seem to me to have a bad case of dry rot of the trunk, so it was just standing there looking for an excuse to fall down.

An observation is that the white flowers come first. Another observation is that they are already starting to leave. Here are a couple of nice white flowering crabs with some pink flowering crabs in the background. These are at Commonwealth Terrace on Como Avenue.There are lots of lilacs about to reach full bloom and plenty of other signs of late spring/early summer out and about. It was windy but it is always good to be out there to see what is happening, what is changing.

Sarkozy has apparently been elected President of France. Royal has conceded and Blair and Bush et al. have telephoned congratulations. Washington can "count on our friendship," Sarkozy told hundreds of cheering supporters, though he added that "friendship means accepting that friends can have different opinions." So that seems good to me.

Arsenal 1: Chelsea 1. Manchester United clinches the league championship, unseating the two time defending champions, Chelsea.