What makes England the Greatest Country In the World No. 1

Off to the Gym and it's peeing down with rain and, playing amid the drizzle is a couple of dozen elderly bowls players. They wear full length white coverall macs that look, for all the world, like white burkas. It's like a photographic negative of a scene in Bagdad. Obviously, it takes a lot more than a downpour to put these people off.

There are just so many reasons this is great. Wanted to stop and take a picture but didn't have camera. Don't suppose anybody will believe me now but I swear they were there, like wraiths. Wraiths playing bowls.

Certainly it's the time to do it. The rain has refreshed everything, releasing the scents of the plants and giving everything that clean, just laundered smell. And because it's coming on to summer it's warm healthy rain, rather than the wintery stuff that you just know is actually 30% pigeon.