Blame it on The Weatherman

The temperature fluctuations over the last few weeks must have been particularly tiresome for all of those Field Decorators out there.

When the weatherman announced that it was going to be cold, there was a sudden flurry of activity and all the Field Ornaments were suddenly stripped of their waterproof rugs and left nude. Then when the weatherbloke said that it was going to get warmer, the Field Decorators hurried outside again to replace their horse’s coats. In short, the Field Ornaments’ rugs have been off and on more times than Microsoft Windows 98.

In fairness I had myself thought that it was meant to be springtime, but the sleety showers and freezing winds a few weeks ago caused me to think it was winter once again. I even thought about putting the heating on, but the little watchman on our kerosene tank was showing only one bar remaining and I wanted to put off the agony of buying fuel for as long as possible.

Luckily, as soon as Theresa May announced that a general election was possibly on the horizon, the arse quite literally fell out of the crude oil market causing kerosene prices to fall through the floor. This has worked well for us country dwelling folk and we were able to fill up our domestic fuel tanks for a cheaper price than usual, just as the cold snap was about to hit.

At least we had warning that the bitterly cold weather was approaching, but that in itself was a bit odd. Generally I watch the weather forecast and then go outside to see if Lord Lucan is riding Shergar around my garden. The only forecast that seems to be faintly truthful is the week-long instalment on Tooniefile on a Sunday evening and this forecast irritates me as the bloke that presents it seems hell-bent on being casually dressed. This is clearly not right. He should be smartly dressed at all times to encourage the general public to believe him. Let’s face it, who are you more likely to trust, a woman with several pieces of hay in her hair, a high visibility jacket and a pair of holey jodhpurs or a bloke in a suit?

Quite.

I have come to the conclusion that to be a Weather Forecaster, you have to be a habitual hoaxer and a fantasist.

Think about it for a moment. When we have a rubbish summer (every year), they announce that in September we will bask in an Indian Summer. And every autumn once the Indian Summer has failed to materialise, they predict that there will be a hard winter with heavy frosts and lots of snow. We are encouraged to stock up on salt and grit and are then enormously disappointed when all winter brings is masses of rain and in turn, mud; and a colossal flood risk.

I’m sure that weather forecasters’ methods of guesstimating what the weather is going to do are extremely complex. At least I hope they are extremely complex. I will be seriously annoyed if I discover that they are using a piece of Bladderwrack, a barometer that they have to tap on occasionally and a wet finger held up towards the sky to decide what they are going to dramatically announce on the next bulletin.

Monty Don announced on Twitter last week that you shouldn’t “cast a clout until May is out”. By the state of Monty’s hands he doesn’t have an army of pensioners from the local village weeding the Jewel Garden once the cameras have stopped rolling and this should make me believe that he is correct with his clout casting quotation. But unfortunately I don’t want to see Monty removing his coat, because judging by the state of his trousers all his clouts would benefit from a 90 degree wash with a litre of bleach and 9 capfuls of Roundup. The hair and make up lady on Gardener’s World must want to swop his Radox for Borax.

I heard many years ago that if the holly bushes have an abundance of berries on them, it will be a hard winter. I also know that in the spring when the trees are beginning to come into leaf, that if the “Oak is out before the Ash, we will merely get a splash but if the Ash is out before the Oak we will surely get a soak”. In my book this makes me a far more accomplished and proficient forecaster than the BBC weather people. In fact, maybe I should apply for a job with the BBC. I could save them a fortune as I could present the weather from my desk in my guest room via a webcam. As everyone is so busy these days, I could produce shorter and much more to the point weather announcements simply by using my wardrobe. If I was wearing a duvet, hot water bottle and balaclava, people would know it was going to be cold. I could wear a sou’wester and brandish my wellies if it was going to rain and if I was wearing a sun hat, sunglasses and was slapping on some factor 50, this would suggest that it was going to be sunny.

I should maybe apply for a job with ITV as well because as their weather girl is always pregnant I could cover her maternity leave to get into the swing of things. I appreciate that this would mean that I would have to actually turn up at the television studio, but as they rarely show what the weather presenter is wearing from the knee down I could wear my jodhpurs under whatever dress I had grabbed from my wardrobe that morning.
I would just have to make sure that I had removed all the hay from my hair prior to transmission, otherwise the viewers would think I was an amateur.