Well now, following on from this week’s glorious heatwave — and by glorious, I mean the sort of relentless, brow-mopping sunshine that makes the roses collapse sideways in despair — it’s got me thinking about the curious relationship this village has with weather in general.
Here in The Little Country, we don’t so much observe the weather as treat it like a favourite unreliable uncle. The forecasts? Mere suggestions. Locals don’t really check them for accuracy, we watch them for entertainment, much like a stand-up act at the parish hall.
“Ah yes,” we say, nodding at the cheery chap on the telly with his animated charts and confident grin, “he reckons ‘light drizzle’ by teatime. Best bring the ark, then.”
In fact, it’s become a local sport to compare what The National Weather Service claims with whatever is actually occurring in our vicinity, which more often than not involves weather that simply does not exist anywhere else. You could be baking in 34 degrees sunshine on one side of the village and ankle-deep in hail on the other.
And then there was The Incident of the Fete.
Ah yes. The year our committee, in a moment of rare ambition fuelled by one too many elderflower wines, invited an actual weatherman to open the village fete. Not just any weatherman, either. Derek Thripps himself. The nation’s beloved, cardigan-clad prophet of precipitation. He even boasted about it live on the 6 o’clock news:
“I shall be opening a lovely summer fete this Saturday. Expect clear skies, a cooling breeze, perfect conditions for a bunting-lined extravaganza!”
Oh dear.
By the time Mr. Thripps arrived, dressed for a Mediterranean coastal stroll, complete with straw hat and jaunty optimism, the village green was under eighteen inches of snow. Eighteen inches. In July. Not a dusting, not a flurry, a full blizzard’s worth, complete with drifts around the tombola and icicles hanging from the WI’s sponge cakes.
The canvas marquee was encased entirely in ice, like some pagan relic unearthed from a glacier. The Morris dancers had frozen mid-jig and poor Mrs. Wobbleton’s scones were technically classified as permafrost by noon.
To give Mr. Thripps credit, he smiled gamely for the cameras. But we all saw it. That twitch at the corner of his eye. The dawning realisation that his charts had never prepared him for this place.
He resigned from the BBC the very next week.
Last we heard, he had retreated to Berneray to take up kelp harvesting. Apparently, it is quieter, and seaweed rarely surprises you with snow.
So yes, we continue to treat the weather reports as light entertainment here. Useful mostly for an excuse to pack everything from sunscreen to snow-shoes for any trip further than Mrs. Trubshaw’s gate. And I, for one, wouldn’t have it any other way.
Yours, still drying out the tea towels after last week’s unexpected sleet,
🧓 Virgil