Love Sunshine

I haven't the foggiest
I'm frankly amazed at how much credibility folk give me when it comes to matters meteorological. They assume because I wrote a book about sunshine, I know a lot about the weather, and, here's the funny bit, might be able to predict what kind of summer we're going to have.

I'd better put the record straight. First of all, I have no interest in the weather in itself. I have a more than unhealthy interest in what the weather will do in the immediate future, and how this will affect my well-being / sanity; but I have no love of weather itself (it's the stuff that gets in the way of sunshine). I have no interest in or knowledge of meteorology. That is a science - the science of meteors, ie. stuff that falls from the skies, and I'd really rather it didn't. My relationship with the skies is profoundly superstitious, untouched by the supposed scientific breakthroughs that have 'revolutionised' forecasting since the middle of the last century. Supercomputers have replaced seaweed, in other words, which is a good deal cheaper and about as accurate.

What I do know of the weather which might form the basis of a prognosis for the summer is based on my acute memory of summers past. The data stored in my head and in my heart allows me to pronounce on the likely outcome for the summer, which can be summed up neatly as: 'buggered if I know'. The one sure thing I know about the British weather is that it is unknowable. And, therefore, a typical exchange in response to my stoical scepticism might go as follows:

Naive communicant: 'But we're having a lovely spring'
Sage who knows his onions (me): 'Groan. That's what worries me. We had a corker of a spring in 2007, followed by the worst summer in living memory. And last year? More sunshine in February than August'.
Slightly abashed naive communicant: 'So a good spring means a shoddy summer?'
Slightly smug sage: 'On recent performance. And vice versa. The spring of 2006 was pants. The wettest March since George IV, and dreary up to June; then 2 months of unbroken sunshine'.
Crestfallen communicant: 'So we're in for another stinker then?'
Starting to annoy sage: 'Not necessarily. You recall the summer of 03?
Weary communicant: 'What when all those people died from the heatwave?'
Wistful sage: 'That's the one. Glorious. Started in May, pretty much kept going without relent through to September. Records broken in August. It was ace.'
Brightening communicant: 'Ah, but we've had a really cold winter. It follows cold winter, scorching summer. So they say'.
Triumphantly smug sage: 'They say a lot of tosh. Winter of 62-3. Return of the ice age for 3 months. Followed by about average summer. And we all know what 'about average' UK summer is. Shite'.

I might hen bore them stupid with my roll call of good and bad summers, until they share my conviction that there's just no telling one way or the other, and hold a cast-iron conviction never to even mention the weather to me again.