Yes indeed it jolly well has, so postings are going to be thin on the ground.
Once upon a time I would have stayed indoors slavishly knocking out the writing but with age comes wisdom, especially about the Great British Three day Summer.
It’s traditional.
For anything remotely important, such as Jubilee celebrations, major pageants, boat races, horse races and sports days of all kinds, including the Olympics and anything British that has to be held outdoors with vast numbers of people exposed to the elements, it will rain.
The only other possibility, where vast numbers of ordinary people are without any shelter whatsoever and completely inadequate provision of toilets, is a heat wave. This being Britain, we don’t do canopies because we firmly believe we’ll never need them.
How many marathon matches in a howling gale with the rain bleaching sideways in torrents sufficient to sweep you off your feet did it take before we put a roof on Wimbledon?
When I was in Rome I admired the very accomplished means of shading the Coliseum with huge sails which could be pulled over any or all quadrants of the arena to a greater or lesser degree as required two thousand years ago. All right they had a vast army of slaves to do it but we do have domesticated electricity and the necessary one man with a finger to press a button to make ours go and it still took us a hundred and thirty five years of sitting in the rain to work it out.
This is because, despite all indicators to the contrary, the main British attitude to the weather is optimism.
I do believe that British optimism generally, is a direct by product of the climate. In countries where it is possible to get over heated, people make a habit of it. Here, where we so rarely get the opportunity to get hot and bothered, we just don’t bother to do it; we don’t get the practice in, you see. If you did get yourself in a state about something and decide you would go rushing off to Parliament to tell them, by the time you had waited for the bus, in the rain, at the unsheltered bus stop, you wouldn’t bother. You’d sensibly go home and sit by the fire to dry out with a bit of tea and toast and your jumper quietly steaming on the back of the chair, like any Englishman would.
So, whilst we all tell each other what a lovely summer it will be, round about March, when the snow is beginning to warm up a bit, we all know the probability is otherwise. Our optimism is such that we have an entire clothing industry founded on the vain hope that the summer in the UK will be warm.
I only turned the heating off last week.
What we really do have, at absolute random, is three fine days on the trot, every year.
On Saturday, the slugs were disappointed. It failed to rain.
On Sunday the snails were perplexed. The rain didn’t.
Yesterday (Monday) (nice to see you so au fait with the week, by the way) once more the sun shone.
Today the sun is still shining! It is bonus summer! An extra day! Hooray!
I’m off to mow the lawn and then sit on it, for tomorrow it will rain and, by the end of the week, when the Olympic games get underway in numerous unsheltered stadia, it will be bucketing down in the traditional manner.
So I’m off outside because I’m wise to all this now.
Once upon a time I’d have sat by the computer typing a great long creed and missed the Great British Three Day Summer Bonus Day completely.
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JaneLaverick.com – deranged but in a good way.