July has come and gone but not the July weather. April and May are the months that usually inundate Montreal and the surrounding areas with rain but this year it rained well into July. There have been some freakish weather patterns as of late and it’s affected several areas. The west coast of Canada being inundated with more sun than the equatorial countries, perhaps not but I’m sure people in Vancouver would beg to differ. British Columbia has a series of forest fires to deal with and the sun along with lightning strikes have not helped whatsoever. In the meantime, people in Ontario and Quebec have been dealing with the wet and not so wild climate, just wet.

In the first fourteen days of July, twelve were rainy days with some really wicked thunderstorms. This has put a damper on many things and preventing me from riding my motorcycle is one. I’d take out the bike even when it’s raining but thunderstorms and flooded streets is where I draw the line for motorcycling, it’s a motorcycle not a boat. Yes, we got rained on and rained on while the west sizzles and burns, mother nature is not kind this year.

But all this wet weather did not dampen the events that were happening in July, the show must go and go it did. The Jazz festival this year albeit a bit wet at times did not disappoint, from Stevie Wonder to Ben Harper and of course all that was in between which includes the small Dixie bands to solo performers to big band and Cuban musicians and dancers. So the show went on and it eventually had to end. Ben Harper was the closer for most people and it was a good show, at least the rain held out for most of the show, it wasn’t really rain, more of a sprinkling. Hopefully August will be more normal, whatever normal is nowadays.