I’m not sure if it was the cold that work Willow early this morning, or the storm that was raging, or both. I do know it was lashing down with rain and there was howling wind for most of the night. Sadly the “ventilation” in our front room basically equates to “large hold in the wall that acts like a chimney” and after two years of having the heat sucked out of the room via said vent and leaving the floor constantly cold I’m going to block the damn thing up. Yes I know it’s meant to stop CO2 buildup when we’ve got the fire on but theres enough places in the house that let in drafts (the back door for one) that the only thing we’re in danger of is being warmer and spending less on heating.
As I’m sure i’ve mentioned before the path outside the front of our house acts like a wind tunnel so when it’s windy out there’s a gale blowing down the front of the house which just aids in sucking the heat out of the house even faster and, with last nights weather, I’m surprised Willow wasn’t sucked out of the vent it was blowing so hard. It’s calmed down this morning but it’s still strong enough to stop me in my tracks when it was really blowing hard on the way to the station.
The Brollycon system is a regional alert system designed to protect the public from the ever present threat of full scale saturation attacks from either rain, snow or hail. For your own safety please familiarise yourself with the following.
Brollycon 5: No threat of precipitation. Umbrellas and other wet weather gear are not required to be close at hand. Rarely used in the United Kingdom.
Brollycon 4: Possible threat of precipitation. Umbrellas and other wet weather gear close to hand or easily retrievable. The lowest brollycon state of the commuterate to avoid total saturation in the event of surprise attack.
Brollycon 3: Credible threat of precipitation. Brollies and wet weather gear carried to be carried on your person. Depending on the temperature coats may be deployed. Usual brollycon state of the commuterate. Lowest brollycon state of Scotland.
Brollycon 2: Precipitation imminent or light rain. Umbrellas on alert 5, all coats to be deployed, other wet weather gear to be readied for possible saturation attack. Highest alert status. Individuals are allowed to go “brollies free” at their own discretion.
Brollycon 1: Full scale rain. All wet weather gear to be deployed. Unprotected or inadequately protected civilians to seek immediate shelter until precipitation ceases or help arrives. Does not require central authorisation once “brollies free” has been declared.
Current local brollycon status: 2
Personal brollycon status: 1
So now the summer holidays are in full swing I might go back to noodling about on my laptop on the way into work and writing blog posts on my way to (and, if they’re long, possibly from) work. We’ll see. This, of course, does beg the question: where the bloody hell is summer? We went through one of the warmest springs ever and then, with the exception of the odd day here and there, it’s just stayed like that. Recently it’s felt more like autumn than summer and I’ve even toyed with the idea of lighting a fire last weekend. This country seriously needs to sort it’s climate out.
I do hope the claims of lovely weather weren’t an April fool by Anglia news. Words like “glorious” were bandied about, pictures of the sun adorned the map and warm temperatures predicted. I have dressed accordingly.
To be fair they did caveat the forecast with the fact that it would start out cloudy, but we were informed this would soon be burned away by the blazing sunshine. Thankfully I had the sense to put my jumper in my bag, mainly because I work with a bunch of fresh air freaks who are forever throwing open the windows and I can’t stand being in a draft.
As it stands words I’d use to describe the day, thus far, are “overcast”, “breezy” and “nippy”.
It sounds so enticing, doesn’t it? “April showers”, a light sprinkling of warm rain on a beautiful spring day, perhaps taking shelter for a few minutes under a tree while it clears before continuing on with whatever you were doing.
Sadly it’s still March and this isn’t a shower, it’s rain. It’s cold, it’s wet and it’s miserable. One wonders if April will
live up to the dream given it’s less than 24 hours away. I suspect not.
Today we saw the first frost1. I’m not a huge fan of frost. It implies cold and it makes the pavement slippery underfoot. That said, it can be quite pretty. Annoyingly so in fact.
This morning the train drove through the broads on its way to Norwich with the perfect combination of autumn light, autumnal colours, frost, still water and the tiniest amount of mist rising from the water. It’s the kind of weather you need to be out with camera and tripod capturing said scenes instead of on the train describing them.
1 Not of the year mind you, there was plenty of frost at the beginning of the year. Snow too. This would be the first frost since summer. The first frost of the season if you will.
So for those of you paying attention we recently procured a bird table of epic proportions. As well as providing 5 star dining with two restaurants and pool this leviathan construction had to be able to withstand hurricane force winds. This latter requirement was put to the test last night.
The really astute among you will note the BBC are reporting that the UK has been “battered” by high winds and rain. Now this may or may not be the standard thing of somewhere in the UK getting a battering and there being a bit of wind and drizzle in London thus it’s a country wide problem1 but Cromer was among the areas getting battered. We’re talking seas so rough that rescues require two lifeboats and a helicopter and winds that were throwing sizeable chunks of tree at my wife at work (something, incidentally, that the planet might want to refrain from doing in the future if it knows what’s good for it). Last night the howling wind and the banging of things not nailed down lead to a poor nights sleep. I had visions of being woken by the Dutch asking if we’d like our bird table back.
This morning we crawled out of bed, cursed the weather and our lack of sleep and then marvelled at the sight of our bird table, intact and exactly where we left it. I am impressed.
1I always remember one storm where the national news was banging on about how bad it was for the majority of the program, although most of the reports seemed to come from North Yorkshire so the claims of the whole UK being in the grip of the worst storm since whenever were perhaps a bit overstated. The national weather forecast was predicting Armageddon with people in the northern parts of the country warned to stay indoors lest the wind deposit a block of flats on them or the rain flay the skin off their backs. The local Yorkshire news mentioned nothing, the local weather forecast did start with a statement that it might be a bit breezy out there and then went on to quietly forecast rain with more wind because it’s Yorkshire and that kind of thing happens a lot at certain points of the year and unlike London the county doesn’t cease to function in anything harsher than light drizzle
The Met Office have, via the medium of their televised weather forecasts, been banging on about what a fantastic day today is going to be. Numbers like ’25′ were bandied about in association with this area and phrases like “glorious sunshine” have been uttered. To my knowledge this prediction of great weather started yesterday evening and persisted to this mornings weather report.
Since The Zozo is currently ill and has a day off (the two events are unrelated) I didn’t open the curtains this morning allowing her to remain in bed and have a well deserved lie in. Also, having been so conclusively told about the nice weather today I never bothered checking my phone. My first experience of the actual weather was, therefore, when I stepped out of the front door resplendent in tshirt and sunglasses and encountered… mist.
1 hour later and slightly further inland and there is still mist. Fearing the Met Office had furnished me with untruths I checked my weather app on the phone. It’s suggesting that 18 might be a more realistic temperature for today.
I just hope the sun comes out otherwise it’s going to be a bit chilly today.
…summer is back 
It’s a gorgeous day out there and it’s the start of The Weekend™. Unfortunately The Zozo doesn’t have any days off this weekend to share it with her (assuming we’re getting more than just an afternoon of this) which is an arse.
Blue skies and the office bathed in sunshine as I get to leave it for a couple of days of freedom
So I’m lead to believe that it is summer also personally I think we’re already into autumn. We did have a couple of warm weeks a few weeks ago where I’d walk into work in a tshirt and all the windows at work were open but these days I find myself walking around with my trusty Central Park Zoo hoodie on as well because it’s just really not that warm, especially in the mornings.
It doesn’t help that at work all the windows are still open so the hoodie tends to stay on only to come off when I get to the station on my way home as the sun has had a whole day to heat things up and the walk warms me up.
From this we can learn two things and confirm a third:
Firstly putting my jumpers in a drawer that, due to the placement of other furniture, is hard to get at was a bit short sighted, even if it was done at the beginning of summer.
Secondly I need another hoodie as of the two I own one is old and the other is worn constantly.
Thirdly the weather in this country sucks.