In one place, for a bit.

[heliopausa]

May Day greetings to you all!  Workers' rights and bunches of lily-of-the-valley. 

I've been travelling a lot, to Australia and New Zealand, mostly because of family members being ill - and it's really good to be back.  :)  Australia - the parts I was in - was showing the impact of a long, hot summer, with dry, dry gardens, and produce like tomatoes astonishingly expensive - at least, I was astonished to be charged a dollar more for a cheese-and-tomato sandwich than my friend was for a ham-and-cheese; both my friend and the sandwich-shop woman laughed at me for being surprised.
New Zealand, though - what a beautiful, damp, green country that is!  A magic country - no wonder they did all the Tolkien there.

Comments

[sovay]

May Day greetings to you all! Workers' rights and bunches of lily-of-the-valley.

Happy May Day! I'm glad to hear from you. I would also be surprised by tomato costing more than ham.

[heliopausa]

Thank you! I was thinking of you recently, wondering if the movie The Heat of the Day would be described as noir - it's very bleak, being in part about the spread of fascist ideas, and literally pretty noir, because it's set in the WW2 blackout.

[sovay]

if the movie The Heat of the Day would be described as noir - it's very bleak, being in part about the spread of fascist ideas, and literally pretty noir, because it's set in the WW2 blackout.

I have never seen (or even heard of) it, but if I can get hold of a copy, I will attempt to give you an opinion!

[heliopausa]

Thank you! :)
It's British, and made for television, and the acting is patchy - so strange in places that I wondered if the director was making a point, but I didn't know what - maybe that people in wartime Britain were absolutely numbed? And there was something which might have been a giant continuity error, or might have been deliberate, at the climax.
It's from a novel by an author I've never read, Elizabeth Bowen, which maybe got butchered for the film; there was quite a lot of it I could have done without.
It's on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr9ticIVC4U&t=148s

[sovay]

It's on Youtube

I will check it out!

[asakiyume]

Blessed moisture--I love it too; dryness makes me anxious.

Happy May Day!

[heliopausa]

Yes, we are water-creatures, basically. :)

[autumnia]

Hello! I hope your family is doing better now.

At first, I was surprised that the tomato sandwich costs more but then on reflection, not surprised at all. :-) It's crazy how finding all veggie options can cost more than something with meat. (We order takeout a lot at work and when you see the prices for something vegetarian/vegan instead of meat, the mind is baffled.)

[heliopausa]

Thank you. :)

I think in general places charge more for vegetarian/vegan because they can, but the tomatoes costing more was because the summer crop of tomatoes had been devastated by the heat, and scarcity = price rise. It's pretty amazing to think that tomatoes are close to being an "essential", though, such that people (including me) will pay triple the price rather than do without for a month.

[adaeze]

Happy May day (belated)!

[heliopausa]

Thank you! Did you have a public holiday for it?

[adaeze]

Not yet, the official holiday is the first Monday of May, rather than the first day of the month. But there's still plenty of traditionalists around who make a point of marking May Morning proper (often at dawn, which comes waaay too early at this time of year).

[heliopausa]

I can see that's sensible, to avoid cutting too much into the working/business week.
Here, the holiday is on the exact day, and follows Reunification Day, which comes on April 30th, so that one way or another what usually happens is a long, or else a very long, weekend.