One of the national stereotypes of the British is our obsession with the weather. The theories explaining this obsession are that our weather is terrifically varied; unlike many other parts of the world we don’t have dry or rainy seasons – we just have weather. At the same time our weather is rarely truly noteworthy, as it swings within a fairly narrow range – we don’t get hurricanes, it is never really hot or really cold, it just kinda muddles along. And this is the ground of another theory about why we discuss it so much – that we are a muddling along kind of people, and are easily embarrassed by social interaction, so discussion of the weather is a good foil for more challenging conversation.
Well, let me make some observations about the weather.
The other day it felt like spring, because it was fairly warm, and the bulbs are popping through the soil and buds forming on the bushes. It also felt like summer as I found a couple more raspberries in the garden. And it also felt like autumn, as the leaves have only in the past couple of weeks released their hold on the trees, so I was raking them up from outside my front door. The only season that was missing was winter, which was the season it is meant to be.
Odd.
Not that I want to obsess about it, but it is odd. It’s just not British, somehow, and yet somehow it is. I guess we’ll just keep muddling along.
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