For the birthday of my wife Françoise on 7 August we bought seven helium balloons and decided to leave them there to see what happens. Each balloon leaks helium at a different rate and they do a slow dance, up and down, side to side, and we shall see how long it takes for them to finally hit the ground so to speak.

It never ceases to amaze me the stupidity and low intelligence of those who think they can con money out of us by promising huge financial rewards for not doing anything. I enclose a letter I just received this morning. There are 13 spelling and grammar mistakes and yet I can guarantee that someone somewhere will be stupid enough to give their phone number and be pestered by very convincing-sounding people that they should wire $155 and never see it again. There will of course be other charges for administration; the idea is to bleed the person dry.  To be financially needy sometimes switches off your brain and desperate people will do what ever they are told.

xFrom the Desk Of MrJohn C Williams
Federal Reserve Bank
Today at 2:20 AM
Headquarter: New York, NY, United States of America
Founded : 1914, New York City, New York, United States
ADDRESS : 33 Liberty Sta New York , NY 10045-0001

Did you authorize Mrs. Annette Stillman of Kemuning Ray Street NO.8,Tomang.
Jakarta,Indonesia to pay the pending wire transfer charges and claim
your WORLD BANK/IMF assisted scam victim compensation funds of $9.5millon
USD?

She is here with us now,with the sum of $155 usd for the pending wire
transfer charges, you are alerted to reply urgent so that if she is not from you we will have her by FBI but do reconfirm to this bank as a matter of
urgency if this woman is from you or not so that the federal government will not beheld responsible for paying into wrong account thank you..

You are to come back to us with your

PHONE::NUMBER

YOU ARE ALERTED TO REPLY SO URGENT NOW ! NOW !
VIA OUR MOBILE NUMBER:
+1(347)391-2671

Sincerely.
Mr John C Williams
Director Federal Reserve Bank

NB John C Williams does in fact exist and is the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Back. I don’t suppose he appreciates his name being used in this way but I somehow don’t think that this matter will be at the top of his list of concerns.

Today a lady rang me from the Sustainable Food Project asking if there were any excess food from our allotments.  I had indeed been round and saw how much food was being wasted by not being picked so that was the ideal time to write to my allotmenteers and ask them in a tactful way if there was scope for giving the excess – runner beans for example – which are always prolific at this time of year.