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| The shape of things to come – rain, rain and more rain! |
It’s the first day of the holidays for me and it has been raining solidly for the past six hours. The prognosis for a happy outdoor summer (the only one at all possible for two overly active boys) is vanishing fast and their mother has retreated back to bed to view it all with a jaundiced eye, muttering darkly the words: “It was never like THIS when I was a child…”
As I lie here warm and dry in bed, I scamper lightly over the Internet searching vainly for a glimmer of sunshine, but however hard I peer, all I see is forecasts for rain.
The Met Office confirms my own thoughts about June - the wettest since records began in 1910.
No shit Sherlock!
But however much I read about it, however much I hear about it; there is a perverseness in the character of my countrymen that I hold true to; I don’t believe a word of it.
Come off it, if we really believed that all we’d be getting is grey skies, cold and rain, do you think, for one minute, that we’d carry on living here?
Come off it, if we really believed that all we’d be getting is grey skies, cold and rain, do you think, for one minute, that we’d carry on living here?
No, the sheer joy of being British, of living on this rain sodden island, is the fact that it MAY NOT rain in our little patch of England despite what the forecasters say.
I put it to you that the British are eternal optimists. A nation full of hope over adversity
We buy BBQs, strappy tops and flip flops bang on the dot of British Summer Time and dare the summer not to be as good as our memories make it, flying in the face of unpalatable truths.
(I feel a rousing British Anthem emerging from the background now: pomp and glory…)
Resolute we stand soaked to the skin as we eat our strawberries and cream, joyfully revelling in OUR summer and woe betide the Johnny Foreigner who says to us: “Gee is it always this wet?” as they huddle pathetically in the doorway at Harrods peering out into the interminable grey
We’ll drip quietly and look scornfully at them and their temerity.
“No, of course not, you should have been round in the Summer of 2007. Flash floods, whole towns cut off…”
Ah yes, the Summer of 2007, when Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire was totally cut off and flood waters seeped in to the Abbey for the first time in 247 years…
Maybe it’s not our stalwart stance in the face of adversity that makes us what we are, rather a collective amnesia about the weather, especially in the Summer…
16 comments:
Meanwhile, back in Illinois, this has apparently been the dryest June on record. Of course I wouldn't know as I spent the whole month under an umbrella in England. At the moment, the entire USA is under a heat advisory, and Chicago reached 103 Farenheit yesterday, with the promise of an even hotter day today until it "cools off" to a mere 90 at the weekend.
That's 39.4 and 32.2 respectively.
Expat Mum - Noooo! There's hot and there's wet and there really should be something in between! Probably mid Atlantic! Hope it cools downfor you guys soon otherwise happy to transport some of ours...
I'm loving the weather in Devon this year! You wouldn't catch me back in the States in any season!
DetroitMom2DevonMum - Ah Devon always rains whatever the weather - or at least that's what I was told when I was at college there! Loved it. Best three years of my life!
It hasn't rained here since the beginning of June, the UV index today is 10 and there's a humidex warning of 45. Ugh. We'll take some of your rain.
Little Red Hen - Never sure whether no rain is better than too much rain. Get the feeling too much of anything is crap. If I could send it in a parcel I would I promise!
I always forgive changeable weather in June; after all, it's the month of Glastonbury and Wimbledon. But the beginning of July has been horrendous. Nevertheless, I'm still squelching to and from school in my Birkenstocks; I refuse to wear tights and boots in July.
Mymummylife - true Brit grit! July is definitely the time for flip flops and sandals certainly not tights, jumpers and boots! Good on you!
Oh I remember that flooding in Tewks! I lived down the road in Chelt at the time, though I've only moved to Evesham now so I guess I'm still down the road if not closer. I've also moved to a town where we're prone to flooding thanks to the River Avon. Am major annoyed with the weather today as the river festival has been cancelled :(
Oh I remember that flooding in Tewks! I lived down the road in Chelt at the time, though I've only moved to Evesham now so I guess I'm still down the road if not closer. I've also moved to a town where we're prone to flooding thanks to the River Avon. Am major annoyed with the weather today as the river festival has been cancelled :(
Flooding down here. Great innit? Sigh.
Me,The Man & The Baby/Emma Harris - Hope the Avon doesn't burst its banks! Hate it when the weather means that things don't happen. Will they do it another day or is it totally cancelled?
ExmoorJane - You would think we would evolve to have webbed feet and be able to breathe underweater by now!
I think you may be right that many of us get amnesia about the weather in the 'summer' I feel we have had summer as we had some hot weather in April and in May. I am however praying for fine weather at the end of August as we are off camping, and I really don't fancy 2 weeks of rain!
I do feel really sorry for all the organisers of events that have been cancelled, they must put so much work in throughout the year for things to be cancelled at the last minute.
Mrs Shortiesmind - I feel sorry for them too! We went to a garden Opera the other day and had a picnic supper in the pouring rain it was hysterical! Luckily it dried off enough to continue withthe event but it was rather touch and go!
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