Where would we be without the Great British Weather? (From Gazette & Herald)

Where would we be without the Great British Weather?

MY interesting talking point of late has been the official revelation that this March has been one of the coldest on record - a full two and a bit degrees below the average, apparently.

Well, of course, we had all that snow a few weeks ago didn't we? A nightmare to drive in, absolute nightmare. But just last week I was able to walk to school without a jumper on! Fancy, in March!

There I was, in the unfortunate situation of being stuck in the lunch queue with only a teacher to talk to, and plumping for the safest and best topic. It had previously been very awkward indeed, with neither of us feeling we could ask anything too personal about each others' lives outside the school domain, yet similarly, it seemed wrong and a bit geeky to jump into anything classroom-related. But with my grand British upbringing, I made a theatrical show of peering out of the window, sighed loudly and began the traditional English weather conversation, with much success. It doesn't matter if it's sunny or rainy, we'll still find something to comment upon, and actually manage to get quite excited about it.

I've heard, rather rudely, that foreigners think we Brits talk about the weather to avoid raising more pressing or awkward matters or that weather is a wedge to fill up silences that should be kept silent. While the weather does that, I can assure you that it's not simply for that reason - the weather in our country is a national institution.

In my circles, i.e. school and home, rumours of snow are constantly rife, with every new whisper of the situation in Scotland making me positively bounce off the classroom walls in anticipation. English newspaper headlines regularly snub murders and robberies to make way for particularly sunny days, with experts keen to give their two cents-worth on the coming "heat wave" which never quite emerges. Our weather fluctuates and promises excitement - just enough to make sure that it is never too uninvolved in our day-to-day plans.

However, all this giddy glee is incomprehensible to the rest of the world, those poor souls with perpetual sun or snow. There's no need for the weatherman, as they can already predict it for themselves. Snow. Sun. Yawn.

The Great British Weather gives us an added edge to our lives, for our days are not simply determined by what we chose to do with them. No, we have the weather to contend with as well. To take a painful example, for the past few days the weather has been so miserly that I couldn't go into town for coffee with my friends because my shirt would blow up, my heels would slip on the damp pavement and my hair would go frizzy - look at all the ailments a bit of rain can create! But just a day later and I'm sitting writing this, and streaming through my bedroom window is the weather of the tropics - lovely hot sun with a Caribbean breeze whistling through the daffodils.

Luckily I'm cosied up in my nice centrally-heated house, with no way of verifying whether the weather actually is this scrummy, but it sure looks it.

I even suggest a little stroll on Scarborough beach with the family, knowing full well that by the time the afternoon rolls by tornadoes will be likely.

You see, the Brits do not talk about weather so incessantly because we are socially inept otherwise. Quite the contrary - we know which side our bread is buttered and accordingly worship the gods that determines our lives, the elements. And right on cue, those winds have started - best cancel that walk Mum...

Updated: 14:19 Wednesday, March 29, 2006