When Will Spring Be Sprung?
We are well into March now, the time of year when we should be looking forward to seeing the little lambs frolicking across the daisy strewn meadows, when flowers should be blooming along the roadsides and trees take on a beautiful new verdure. What has happened to our hopes of Spring? It seems as if we are stuck in an eternal bleak midwinter.
Whether you believe in global warming or not it seems inescapable that the climate in this country has changed dramatically in the last two years. We used to get hot summers that were so dry that hose pipe bans were enforced, well in our modern summers those same hosepipes are being used to pump away water from our flooded streets. For three years in a row we have had a complete washout with lower than usual temperatures combining with flash flooding and two months solid of torrential rain.
We then went into this rotten winter, mild in previous years but back with a vengeance in 2009-10. The snow has surpassed anything seen in recent years and record low temperatures have been felt across the country. I feel like instead of pulling out my brollie like I normally would, I should be booking some ski accommodation.
By now we are surely ready for a fine Spring, but don’t hold your breath. I would have expected to see the first buds beginning to bloom, but those hardy few flowers that do poke their heads above soil are being killed by the thick night frosts that seem to be endemic. Snow is forecast, yet again, for next week - will there be no end to that heart freezing white stuff that falls so regularly from our sky?
All of this dreadful weather is having a devastating effect on our national psyche. There seems to be a standard look, a mixture of resignation and misery, etched onto everyone’s face and neighbours who would once greet each other with a cheery smile and a wave now mumble dispiritedly to each other and gaze at their snow ruined shoes.
Is there a more sinister side to this weather, I can’t help but ask? Perhaps there is some evil criminal mastermind holed up near Montego Bay, working in cahoots with the Jamaican tourist board and using a fiendish invention to ruin our weather? There is only one way to find out - I need to head to the Caribbean myself and track down this Mr Big. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it!