What I love to hate about the weather hosts on tv these days is that, despite their good looks, inane grins and air of (supposed) superior knowledge, they haven’t got any more of a clue of what the weather’s going to do than the rest of us. Personally I think they’d do better with a bit of string outside the window – wet, it’s raining; swinging around, it’s windy; dry it’s sunny and white, it’s snowing.
I mean let’s face it, if they say it’s going to rain, then you can almost guarantee that it’ll crack the flagstones and vice versa. Remember last summer, the so-called ‘barbeque summer’ which was going to be so hot they were issue warnings for the young and old to be careful of heat and sunstroke? As I recall it was a total washout - rained nearly every day and was overcast and cloudy the rest; which also brings me to the ‘drought’ we’re supposed to be suffering.
What ‘drought’? I mean here in the Midlands our lakes and reservoirs are around 95% full (the most we’ve seen in years), probably because of the wet stuff we’ve had all winter – you know the rain, the snow and the hail. Do these idiots not know all that’s made out of water?
I have a lot of sympathy for the South and South East of the country that perhaps hasn’t had the same amount of water hit them as we have; but the national weather bulletin bods do have to realise that there really is life North of Watford and its more than a bit damp for the rest of us thanks very much, and that's not just because we're conserving water too.
Of course sadly this 'drought' nonsense then filters into our own local weather; where the same factory droids with the perma grins stand holding their little button thingy and bemoaning ‘our drought conditions', even whilst we can see the hail hammering the ground outside our windows.
I know I’m ranting but it’s because we went shopping and, having not been out all week (and I mean that literally; apart from the odd foray to the recycle bins, I haven’t actually left the house all week as my daughter’s off school for Easter), I nearly fell over when the cold drop kicked me in the face.
I mean was it only a scant week ago that we were basking in the lovely warm spring sunshine? When people were getting their shorts out and putting lily white limbs on display in preparation for the hoped for summer roasting?
However now in the last seven days we’ve gone from the languid warmth of then through snow (no, I’m not kidding – roads up on the hills round here were actually closed due to the blizzard that blew for a few hours), and rain that was letting everyone know that we weren’t suffering any drought here and get building that ark whilst we were at it.
Today I went out in the same jacket I wore that gorgeous weekend, only to realise that actually I needed my hoodie and my winter fleecy if I didn’t want to succumb to hypothermia and frostbite.
Yet still those tv weather guessers (I refuse to call them anything else, as that’s all they’re doing - guessing) insist that it’s still not wet enough and the temperatures are above average for the time of year. Are they mad?! Above average? What country do they think they’re in – Antarctica?
It’s April, and I get the whole 'April showers' thing, but having temperatures here in the real world only reaching about 1⁰C - 2⁰C maximum (and not their predicted 10-12⁰C) is not what the usual averages are, let alone ‘above average’. I think of 'Chicken Little' every time I see them wailing about a 'drought'.
Besides, I don’t think not being able to hose down your hydrangeas and watering your prize marrow is really a 'drought’. If these weather guessers and their fellow naysayers want to see what a real drought is like I suggest they visit parts of the Australian outback and also the Sudan who are having genuine droughts, with not a single raindrop falling for a decade or more; where water conservation really is 'a matter of life or death' - for people and not just roses.
So, for the record, the South and South East of the UK might well indeed be having a water shortage, and for that they have my sympathy - but the rest of the country, especially north of Birmingham, are doing fine thank you. Scotland is, in fact, awash with water they’ve had so much wet stuff landing on them over the last few months.
This is Simi, thanks for reading.......
