My Shout – Not very clever is it?
Yes it’s terribly clichéd and stereotypically British to talk about the weather but that’s what we do when we’ve nothing really else to spout on about don’t we? Well I make no apology for making this month’s My Shout about that very important subject. After all we’ve just experienced one of the hottest summers on record , some are even comparing it with The Summer of ’76 which was, even though I can’t especially remember it, by all accounts pretty jolly hot.
My apple tree is usually a good judge of the weather patterns of the seasons and it has its own story to tell. Being a Discovery apple tree it should normally produce ripe fruit mid to late-August. This year it was definitely late by around two to three weeks but the crop is mega, I should say it’s laden with, of the order of, 400 apples. Last year, a much cooler summer, it struggled to produce anything at all although, so I ’m told, that was mainly down to poor pollination than anything else. I blame insecticides and the lack of bees! So perhaps fruit trees aren’t such an accurate weather predictor.
The weather alters from year to year but does the climate change very much at all? Sometimes you don’t know who to believe with one scientist saying that man is endangering his own planet and we need to rebalance things before all the ice caps melt and the polar bears all have to cling on to the few ice cubes that are left. Then another, equally reputable scientist, tells us that it’s all down to sun spots and it’ll all go back to normal in a couple of hundred millennia.
I blame digital media and 24 hour news. Not that long ago you tuned into the forecast, just after the 9 o’clock News, and heard their guesswork for the next couple of days and that was your lot. Nowadays you can watch the weather all day if you’re so inclined. There are any number of news channels with detailed forecasts about every 15 minutes, even a dedicated weather channel which I think is called, quite aptly, The Weather Channel. Then there are loads of web sites and apps for your i-phone. There are skiing weather report sites, surfing ones, golf ones, holiday beach reports, you name it. Even my 15 year old daughter has taken to obsessively checking the Met Office app’s forecast before venturing out for her 15 minute trek, along that last great wilderness of Pembury Road to school.
Those crucial decisions like which shoes to wear, should she take a brolly, dare she risk no cardigan or coat? Gone are the days when it was good enough to stick your head out of the front door in the morning, look up at the colour of the sky and stick your finger in the air for the wind direction. Well, not quite actually as I’ve a shrewd feeling that John’s Weather Predicting Stone is still as good a judge of the changeable weather as most other devices. I saw this with my own eyes whilst on my annual pilgrimage to Cornwall and I reckon John should patent it before some big corporation goes and copies it.
Until next month then, stay warm and cosy!
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