Category: Weather

Advent #8

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas, Pets, Weather
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In anticipation of Storm Darragh yesterday, I brought our wheel bin indoors. The last time I had to do that was only a couple of years ago – but having recalled the occasion, it struck me that back then we had four dogs (who I slept downstairs with to avoid them getting scared by the wind – whereupon they all slept soundly on the sofa and I gave myself backache perching on a footstool worrying about the fence) whereas now we are down to just one, after losing Ellie.

Ellie arrived, like the Matt Smith era of Doctor Who, in the Spring of 2010, and was our first small dog. And perhaps because of that, and although we always try to treat our childr—our PETS, treat our pets the same, we would often take her out with us rather than leave her home with our giant labrador and stupid collie and run the risk of her being inadvertently sat on.

So she visited both my brother’s flat and my parents’ house, peeing in the corner on both occasions (which I suspect they might have all forgot about by now if I hadn’t just reminded them) and spending one St Peter’s Fair evening tucked inside my jumper.

She was also, which is often the case of small dogs surrounded by idiots, very protective/aggressive (depending on which side of her teeth you are standing on). That’s why, this time last year, I was worried about Ellie’s first meeting with Claudia’s new dog. Rikki is large and gangly and towered above Ellie – but after a moment’s sniffing, frankly it was ‘business as usual’ and back to dozing on the settee.

Despite my worries, it was peace and goodwill to all men (and dogs!) after all!

Advent #18

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas, Doctor Who, Weather, Work

Having survived the past week of sub-zero temperatures, when the mercury dropped and the red light on the electric meter was flashing like the strobe at an illegal rave; today, with the weather a good deal milder, I’ve come down with something. As a result I’ve had to pace myself – which mainly means I stopped halfway through the ironing for a snack and a nap. After all, the last thing I want to do is be ill over Christmas.

I can only remember being ill at Christmas once, in 2010, when I woke on Christmas Day feeling achey and cold and not keen on going anywhere without a duvet. Luckily I rallied mid-morning enough to cook lunch and, more importantly, eat it. But as the afternoon wore on I relapsed, ending up shivering on the settee distinctly lacking in Christmas cheer.

By the evening the crowd had thinned, to the point where by the time Doctor Who was on there was just the two of us – me huddled on the settee wishing I could regenerate; and bruv, who I presume had spent the afternoon identifying the optimum seating position where he could be as near the TV but as far away from me as possible.

When I woke on Boxing Day, as is often the case after a good night’s sleep I felt much better – certainly much more lucid. My recollection of the night before was of frozen ladies, flying sharks, and marrying Marilyn Monroe. In the days of Morecambe & Wise or Only Fools I would have known at once those were solely the invention of a fever – with Doctor Who, more of a 50/50 chance. What else could a boy do? I watched the Christmas special for a second time over breakfast.

Just to be sure.

Ninety-Nine Problems…

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1970s, Childhood, Moaning, Weather

…but the Beach ain’t one.

My colleague at work came into the office yesterday to declare that the workshop was “literally boiling”. It wasn’t of course, any more than he was “literally dead from the heat” when he came in to tell us so an hour later – but in the sense that it was very hot yesterday, is very hot today, and (spoiler alert) will be very hot again tomorrow, he was right.

This sort of temperature always serves to highlight that there are two types of people – those who like it and those who don’t. True, that could be said of almost anything from the kumquat to the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, but the difference seems particularly acute when it comes to hot weather.

I’m not, without wanting to sound too much like a prude, madly keen on seeing a lot of flesh out on public display (that’s probably why I don’t even allow a full-length mirror in the bedroom) but during this morning’s trip into town there was, it must be said, an awful lot of it on show. Sadly the word ‘awful’ is very much applicable there.

I’m not a fan of barbeques either which, like beer bellies and knees also appear out of nowhere the instant hot weather kicks in. Call me an old-fashioned hater of food poisoning, I’ve just never eaten anything that was enhanced by being served either still-pink or charred to a cinder, and it’s never been redeemed by the offer to half-bury it in onions either. If I’m honest I don’t really think, deep down, with our grand history of Agas and Gas-Stoves, that the Brits are made for Barbeques – and I’m certain the increase in them during my lifetime is far more to do with Australian soap operas than it is any change in the climate.

And then there’s the beach.

In and of itself, it’s OK – but the problem is, the very time when the weather suggests it would be great to go to the beach is exactly when the very same suggestion occurs to everybody else. Finding a peaceful bit of real-estate on the beach is next to impossible on such occasions, and there’s no obvious enjoyment to be had from walking barefoot across shingle or from sitting on burning-hot sand. And then there’s the aftermath when for days after, in some kind of vague homage to Marilyn Monroe, you end up finding sand in places you didn’t even realise you had places.

That’s not to say I’ve never been to the beach, obviously. My hazy memories of what I believe we’re all now contractually-obliged to call “the long hot summer of 1976” are of going to the beach. Maybe, living nearby, we went EVERY Summer and I’m just too young to remember; or perhaps it really was “the long hot summer” that prompted it. Either way, I seem to think we went to the beach A LOT that year, and certainly that was when I first saw practiced what has sadly become a dying art in the intervening decades – namely tying a knot in each corner of your hankie and using it as a sun hat. But now that the urge to build sandcastles or collect seaweed has left me, I kind of think I’m done with beaches.

Not that I want to sound like a killjoy (although, if not already sailed, I accept that the ship is literally slipping from its moorings as I type). I wouldn’t want anybody to picture me as hunkering down in a darkened room praying for rain. I’ve been out with the dogs and the lawnmower and the laundry today. But only in the morning. This afternoon (which at time of arriving is about two hundred minutes in) is not, for me, a time to light the BBQ, or head to the coast, or even (heaven forbid!) to get my legs out.

In other words, to go back to my original point, there are those who like the hot weather and those who don’t. And rightly or wrongly, and as has probably become very apparent, I don’t.

What a proper little ray of sunshine I am!

Stormy Weather

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Pets, Weather

(Good title for a song that.)

Last week, I very nearly ‘blogged’ about how, with my other half away, the dogs were sleeping upstairs with me… but then the two girls started fighting, which rather took the shine off it I’m afraid. (Tt, women!)

I only mention it because last night, in something of a role reversal, I found myself sleeping downstairs with the dogs. It’s been said before that I can pretty much sleep anywhere, which is just as well really because, perhaps unhappy about me muscling in on their territory, the lion’s share of the sofas (well, the dog’s share I suppose) was already taken up and I spent quite a lot of time leaning against the side of a settee with my behind on the footstool. Despite that, and despite the need to go outside for a wee (twice) I slept very well.

Let me quickly head off at the pass the thought that this bizarre behaviour was the result of a “you’re sleeping on the settee” row (or, in our case, a “you’re sleeping as near to the settee as you can get” row). One of our dogs is tremendously nervous, easily spooked by loud bangs, or raised voices, or the noise of his own breathing. Consequently, with storm Eunice en route I knew that every shake of the window, every rattle of the letterbox, every general shudder and gust, would have Max running straight upstairs and scratching frantically at the bedroom door – and most likely with the other three close behind, not out of fear but the opportunistic chance of getting to sleep on the bed again. So the easiest thing seemed to be to stay downstairs to reassure him without the need to go pelting upstairs like a thing possessed.

Thankfully, at time of writing anyway, I can report no damage from Eunice. I have of course had to spend an hour so far this morning trying to explain to the dogs why I’m not taking them out for a walk (I felt a little like Homer Simpson when he says, of trying to convince Bart not to do something, “God help me, I even tried reasoning with him”) and if nothing else it certainly says something for the scale of this morning’s Red Weather Warning that I’ve promised to take them out this afternoon… when the wind will be down to a mere sixty miles per hour!

Luckily after a while the dogs always revert to their default position, ie they are now asleep again across two settees and a dogbed. Personally, and unusual sleeping arrangements notwithstanding, I’m wide awake – and simply from having had a good night’s sleep, I’m not wide-eyed in fear at the storm raging outside. My only concession to worry (so far…) was a sudden panic at five am about the wheelie bin becoming airborne – whereupon I brought the poor thing indoors, which is why it’s now stood by the front door in the incongruous fashion of, say, a time-travelling police box standing in a junkyard.

The storm, I gather this morning, has prompted a second Red Weather Warning for this afternoon – perhaps seeking its fortune, Eunice is heading on to London. I don’t know whether in the heart of the city it’s quite as easy as it is down here to, at very short notice, close the schools and cancel some buses and sleep half-perched on a footstool for the night. Luckily I don’t work on Fridays (my boss is forever complaining about it, tells me to stop snoring at my desk) but even if I did I think I would have absented myself today. Hopefully, given the advance warning, everyone has been sensible – and hopefully with minimal damage to property and no damage to life, the storm will literally blow over.

Meanwhile, based on our forecast, we’ve another hour or so of not walking the dogs and of not being able to hoover the downstairs hall carpet because some idiot has parked, of all things, a wheelie bin there! Hopefully my other half isn’t TOO annoyed about that.

Otherwise I might find myself sleeping on the settee again tonight.

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Confused, Little Bit Of Politics, Moaning, Weather

I’m feeling overheated.

I know weather forecasters assume that sunny = good, but when it comes down to it I don’t think we’re really designed for sunshine. It’s traditionally a rather damp and cool little island, and as such I find that endless days of unrelenting sunshine just make me hot and sweaty and irritable.

Everything becomes so much more of an effort when you’re battling against the blinding glare and the sweltering heat – even writing, just pushing buttons on a keyboard, feels too much like hard work. I discovered today that there’s a celebrated sex toy manufacturer less than thirty miles from us, which you might have thought would provoke some sort of response (if only an eager look online for opening times and exact directions) but no, the weather has beaten me.

At least, I think it’s the weather. As opposed to the climate, I mean. I know that they’re two different things but… A bit like cauliflower and broccoli, I struggle to recall what the difference is.

Like so many other aspects of modern life (gender fluidity, quantum computing, the plot to Line of Duty) I find the climate/environment thing very confusing. Not in a dismissive, ‘I’m not going to bother trying to understand it’ way – but in a confused, ‘how many issues are there or is it all the same thing’ kind of way.

It’s second nature now, to put our food waste in the bin provided, to put cardboard and paper into recycling sacks, to sort plastic and glass into recycling buckets. I do it religiously, but I would struggle to explain what good it’s actually doing, or what problem it’s trying to address.

Are my flattened Rice Krispies boxes and rinsed out jam jars helping reduce pollution, or are they conserving natural resources? Is that the same thing? Alternatively, are they, in some inexplicable way, arresting the global rise in temperature? Or helping to repair the hole in the ozone layer even? For that matter, is that even a thing anymore? It used to be mentioned all the time, but (like the Tower of Pisa) I can’t remember the last time I heard anybody talk about it.

Even when I think I’m doing the right thing, I can’t be sure. We get our milk from a local farm as opposed to a supermarket so that means less travel which means reduced carbon emissions which is good. Hurrah.

But he delivers it in plastic bottles. So that’s bad. (I think).

But then, we put the bottles in the recycling, and that’s good. Probably. (Although I don’t know how.)

Should I be nagging him to switch to glass bottles? Would that be better or worse?

And then I hear that cows are bad for the environment – no, the climate – no, the environment – Well, anyway I hear that they’re really bad because of how darned farty they are. So maybe I should just cut out the milk completely?

Less confused, apparently, are the campaigners who have been in London this past week. I have a grudging admiration for anybody going on a protest, but it slightly baffles me that their main aim is to get a Big Solution from government. Yes, they could ban all non-essential air travel, but it’s never going to happen overnight… Better surely, to try and persuade ordinary people to stop flying right now?

We can wait for ‘the people in charge’ – or we can decide to all do our bit now, and that’s got to be a better option, hasn’t it? Even if, like me, you don’t really know what it’s doing. Recycle as much as you can. Don’t fly unless it’s absolutely essential. Buy locally. (Please ignore my casual decimation of both the aviation and haulage industries in a single paragraph there).

It’s not always easy, I know. As a rural area, we’re lucky in that there are plenty of local sources for milk and meat and fruit and vegetables. (Though, no public transport, so swings and roundabouts.)

There’s even, did I mention, a sex toy company in the area. Literally, I could be there in forty minutes.

Oh dear, I’m starting to get overheated again…