If there’s one thing we’re really good at in this Country, beside winning Gold Medals in Olympic Games, is never being completely happy with the weather. I don’t know how far back this attribute goes, probably to the Ice Age when we were going around complaining about the Snow!

It’s either too hot, too cold, too dry or too wet for us Brits. You can be sure that at almost every Bus Stop in the Country there will be a queue of people who will either be speaking about their aches and pains or the Weather.

The best solution – cold in the front garden and hot in the back!

Favourite sentences overheard at Bus Stops or outside Shop doorways are..

“Lovely day, it’s going to rain later”
“Beautiful weather, this can’t last”
“Lovely day for the Ducks”

A couple of weeks ago we had a very hot three days. Every day I saw the same person who said “Phew, too hot for me Dickie”, then on the fourth day when it was raining I got “Oh well, back to normal then, that’s our Summer over”. What exactly did he want!

Of course the Weather Forecasting doesn’t always help, “Tomorrow will be dry and hot with a chance of heavy showers”. I mean!! Yesterday my two Forecasting Websites had bright sun logos right through every hour of the day with temperatures of 30 degrees. At 11.30am it was 29 degrees and sunny, at 12 noon it was chucking it down and the temperature had diminished to 23 degrees.
I think the best Forecast would be “Get up, look out the window and that’s it”.

We don’t help ourselves though, how many on a very hot day think the best idea is to have every window open to let the breeze through? Go to Italy and other hot Med Countries on a good day and you’ll find every window shut and the Shutters closed!

All this does of course make a day out quite an adventure and our bags are usually a mixture of Swimsuits, Overcoats and Macs.

Very hot weather also brings out the very best of us – male teenagers who think they have the body of Mr.Universe and stroll around topless with their T-Shirt in their hands, they usually end up as red as a beetroot by midday and look total prats and those who think that because it’s hot they should wear just a shirt and tie, the shirt usually being made of some Poly material, sticking to their body with wet marks under the armpits!
Again, look at places like Italy, shirt, tie and a cotton vest – makes sense really!

We all know about the snow, half an inch and the Country stops with workers not going in because they look outside, see the half an inch and have this irresistable tendancy to be the member of staff with the worst amount, phone in and say it’s seven inches deep and can’t get the car out.

Just one more observation and I’ll stop! How many think on a hot day we have to have ice cold drinks to cool us down. Being in a job where I often have to look after International Cricketers I’ve found it’s the same with every Asian Team; Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. On a really hot day, the words I hear repeated the most are “Dickie, more Tea, very hot, very very hot please”.

Anyway, I’m going to stop now because I’m typing this in my Garden Office which is too cold from 8am to 11am, too hot from 11am to 6pm and after that it’s too cold again.