Weather Girl

I’ve become a vampire Monday to Friday since January hit. I am back to work and only see daylight at the weekends; if I’m lucky that is and it leaks through a deep pile of clouds. Having spent the best part of 6 months in bright sunny climes it’s weird driving to work at 8.15 am and admiring the full moon still present in the sky. I’m trying hard to reactivate my weather optimism gene that takes years to develop but about a second to lose when you go to a bright, sunny country. It’s the gene that enables you to say in January when driving home at half four, full headlights on that: “you’d notice the evenings are getting longer,” or causes the whole country to see signs that anticipate a long hot summer: “The birds are flying on the diagonal, and did a back-flip before landing; that means summer will be here in April,” or “The sheep are grazing backward up the east face of the hill. Surely be to God we’ll have 40 days of sun in June.” In Australia it took a while to adjust to the literal nature of the weather forecasts, eventually realising that a showery spell actually means it will be a lovely day with a short, light shower of rain and there’s no need to bring wellies and a rain mac to the beach. In Ireland it’s the opposite. Showery spells mean mainly rain with a cloudy period when it stops and everyone searches the sky optimistically for a glimpse of the sun. In fact “so long as it’s dry” is the main criterion for a good weather day here, winter or summer. Below zero and frost, no problem. “So long as it’s dry” it’s ok as the sky will be blue and the roads won’t freeze too badly. Cloudy and overcast during the summer, well “so long as it’s dry” it’s acceptable as a cloudy and overcast and wet day would be simply awful. By the way, good news as I’m writing this; my cat has stretched twice and yawned at me so it should be sunny in May.