Save the fountain

Save the fountain, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

There is a campaign to save a local fountain in Nemi in the Colli Albani near Rome.

The latest gossip from the Hogeweg is that there is a secret campaign afoot to get rid of our new fountain. Nobody knows quite who these people are but it is rumoured that they have met up with each other and have been writing letters to the local council. The main claims are that the fountain is ugly, is too noisy and attracts the '' wrong sort of people'. Well, we have our won ideas about who these people are and in no way can these be thought as the 'right sort of people' themselves. They have even claimed, it seems, that the noiuse of the fountain is so loud that they cannot even here when there washing machines have stopped washing. How terrible!

We don't tghink they have a chance of winning, but I would not be surprised if, at some time in the future, we get some restrictions on when the fountain is switched on. The odd thing is that since the founatin has been switched on, we have been having Italian like weather with this April being by some large degree the warmest April ever. Also, an April without a spot of rain.

Now, I am not a global warming denyer, far from it, but I do think that the recent rin of month after month being the warmest such month ever recorded here in Holland must be due to some natural or random cause. The variations from previous experience is so extreme that I cannot believe that an accumulation of greenhouse gases has caused it, unless we have reached and passed a 'tipping point'.

Still, our fountain cannot have arrived at a better time. It has been very funny to see these last few days a group of young children (aminly girls) in their swimming costumes running in and out of the water and then lying down on towels sunbathing in the hot sun. A great antidote to the complaining old bags who want to have it switched off.