Free games for May

May's a funny month: the calendar shows all sorts of high days and holidays, about which I have nothing to report. Nonetheless we observe our own red letter days:

• On May Day itself, we neither marched for workers' rights nor danced around a maypole (though we might easily have done either of those things). But I bought myself a calendar of Eric Ravilious woodprints, so the first of every month is a special day. May's image is particularly festive: the frontispiece of a book based on the game of Consequences.



• In France, you are likely to be given a sprig of lily-of-the-valley to celebrate May Day. There's a garden that we pass on the way to the Elm Tree, along whose edge lily-of-the-valley grows. Eight days ago, on May Day itself, I saw a single spray of white bells among all the leaves; but yesterday, a week later, the flowers were abundant.



• May 2nd was election day, but the excitement passed us by. For one thing, we had already cast our postal votes by the time the day arrived; for another, this is not the year we have council elections. We failed to raise any enthusiasm for the election of the Police and Crime Commissioner, which we regard as a pointless post (as it happens, the incumbent was re-elected). That leaves the mayoral election. We have not hitherto had a regional mayor, and I remain to be convinced that we will benefit from having one. But for what it's worth, I voted for Jamie Driscoll (he came second to the approved Labour candidate).



• So you'd think that nothing the Labour Party does would surprise me, but you'd be wrong. Even so, if the party is that desperate to increase its tally of MPs, might I suggest that Diane Abbott would be a better choice than Natalie Elphicke?



• It's puffin season! Later this month, Amble will hold its puffin festival. Meanwhile, this is how you train AI to recognise a puffin (but only during the daytime).



• On May 9th 1969, Pink Floyd and others played a free concert on Parliament Hill Fields. We were there, as I have said before and may well say again. Tonight I'll raise a glass to the memory

Better get on with cooking dinner, then...