Winter Warmer

I've succumbed to the Englishman's disease which is to talk endlessly about the weather and yet this is quite understandable when each day seems to bring something new and surprising. A few days ago it was clear bright blue skies, reasonable temperatures and a sense of Winter having been cheated. It felt as though Spring was here.

Buds were popping everywhere; shoots seemed to be emerging from the lukewarm soil virtually in front of our eyes. There was optimism in the air as we all felt the worst was over. People were out gardening, tying up heavy bud laden branches, sweeping up the last of the winter debris and eyeing up their planting options. It felt good.

Yesterday we all woke up to a very different world, freezing temperatures and a world of snow and ice. In a matter of a few hours we seemed to have plummeted into a new ice age and without any real warning. One minute bright blue skies, ice cream and picnics, the next leaden grey snow filled skies, slush and a frosty moustache. We hadn't escaped; we'd just allowed ourselves a brief glimpse into another world. Anyway it wasn't all bad, the sun shook off its shackles and made a few brief appearances and best of all the landscape looked different and special as though it had somehow been drawn with a thick black stick of charcoal.

Here are some photographs I took yesterday, the only thing that is not clearly evident whilst looking at them, is just how absolutely and utterly freezing cold the conditions were. It was tempting to adopt a 'drive-by strategy' whereby your camera is poked out through the briefly opened window of your car and you snap away in warm comfort. But fearing such a namby-pamby approach might blunt the acuity of my vision, like a true artist, I suffered for my art and actually got out of the car and in a moment of creative madness actually walked and stood in the biting wind, feeling my fingers go numb whilst waiting for exactly the right moment to click the shutter and capture that all too elusive light. Ladies and gentleman, I present before you the proof of my reckless quest.
I'm writing this whilst entombed in my tent, the snow relentlessly swirling outside in a blinding fog of icy crystals as the wind howls eerily across the frozen plains. My poor frost bitten fingers can barely clasp the mug containing the last dregs of my lukewarm chocolate drink and my poor battered camera lies beside me, the merciless elements having taken their toll and yet today we feasted with the Gods as we strode the highlands of the mighty Pennines. Enjoy.

Ps. for the record the photographs were taken in Marsden, Slaithwaite, Golcar and Crosland Moor in West Yorkshire and the two opening photographs were taken two days apart - honestl

Comments

[Chris Durbin]

When I was kid the talk was of the next ice age, not global warming. We had been in an interglacial [a warm period for far too long. The little ice age at the beginning of the 18thC was also a long way away. The hot summers of 1975 and 1976 loomed large and the 1963 winter was a distant memory. There is no doubt that scientists don't know what the effects will be in every location. The UK could be hotter or ot could be colder as the gulf stream changes. What we do know is the UK has weather not climate. Weather is variability, and one loves the UK for this. Here in HK, once a weather is established, day on day it hardly changes. It is cold this year, but day to day there are small changes. If it is a high of 12 it will be a low of 8, if it is high of 30 it may be a low of 27. Week by week, temperatures change imperceptibly, there are never really any sudden jumps.

Now we seem to have forgotten that the UK has 4 types of weather according to Dr Xargle's book of Earth weather [a children's book where aliens are taught about planet earth]...too hot [tropical continental], too cold [polar continental], too wet [tropical maritime] and too windy [polar maritime].... I love weather variability and like to celebrate it like Tom has done here. What I think the brits hate most is long periods of the same. They are like the wind and the weather, very changeable as illustrated by Tom's story of the train stampede. Now I am not a climate determinist but it is amusing to think that the national character of people when considered collectively is like the climate or in the case of the UK. Discuss!