The English Summer

I would like to say sorry to my colleagues today, well those that share an office with me, for my slightly grumpy start this morning.

I arrived at work and as I climbed out of the car I was hit by a warm breeze, the morning sun on my face, a beautiful blue sky and the slight damp smell of a summer's morning with the hint of mown grass in the background. The type of stimuli that signals the start of a perfect day, the sort of day that conjures up thoughts of holidays, camping trips, lazy lunches at a pub by the river with a cold glass of your favourite alcoholic tipple and a ploughman's lunch. The sort of day that without doubt will contain at some point an ice cream.

As I walked from the car to the building I was thinking about that ice cream, I didn't want to be at work.

The trouble with living in England is that these days don't seem to come around that often, maybe they happen more often than we might remember, however, they always seem to happen on a working day; when the weekend comes round so does the rain.

Maybe English people of the past have done something to upset the Gods of the weather? For it appears that whenever something important is on which really requires good weather this is when the weather turns bad...

Consider the Queen's jubilee, the biggest river pageant since, well since ever, street parties organised across the land, concerts, fetes and what happens? Wind and rain, apparently very unseasonable weather. The British public laughed in the faces of the weather Gods and braved the appalling conditions, watching boats go by drizzle running down their necks and eating cake sitting at tables in the middle of the street with water dripping off umbrellas into the trifle and plates of unbeaten cucumber sandwiches.

Today is the beginning of the summer solstice, tomorrow morning at 4.52am the Sun will rise over Stonehenge tonight. People (described by English Heritage as individuals and groups conducting their own forms of ceremony and celebration) will be making their way slowly to this ancient site through the traffic jams on the A303 -described by some as a classic route- to spend the night awaiting the celebration of the dawn rising above the prehistoric stones.

How will they repaid? Most likely by the inclusion of a cold front carrying with it a chilly northerly breeze and an inch of rain. The dawning Sun being hidden behind a sky full of nimbostratus cloud formation.

Of course this year the English summer has to be wet; no fancy meteorological modelling needs to be done to figure this out.

Next week is Wimbledon and the running up and down of a tennis court base line with the accompanying thwack of ball on racket is a tried and tested rain dance. So much so that the All England Club spent millions building a roof. Of course in addition this year the country is hosting the Olympics, a sure fire way of ensuring gale force winds and overflowing rivers. Maybe the water companies planned it that way?

Well, even at work, today I enjoyed the summer day and my mood improved. I didn't see any linen trousers, although I did see three bare chests on my way home, only one tattooed!

I'll make sure I have my raincoat tomorrow.