Words I never thought I’d say: thank goodness it’s raining. Shortly after 9.30 am, there’s a heavy drizzle over the village and the temperature is around 17c. After the longest, driest, warmest and sunniest spring and summer I can ever remember, at last we return, however briefly, to the British tradition of changeable weather and it couldn’t be more welcome.
Much as I love the sunny, warm weather, not least because of the effect it has on my mood, our green and pleasant land is parched. The ground is rock hard, plants and wildlife are struggling and while a more continental summer looks and feels great, part of me was beginning to wonder if this unnaturally long dry spell might last forever. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t, but the fact of climate change – and it is a fact, just like gravity and evolution – threatens more extremes than ever.
Many of us have said that if we had “the weather”, meaning consistent sunny and hot weather, no one would ever go abroad for their holidays. For the sun-worshippers among us, that is undoubtedly true. I am not quite a sun-worshipper, but there’s not much in it and my summer preference would often be somewhere very sunny, warm weather was likely a given. But then again, I’ve enjoyed summer holidays in the Netherlands and my prime motivation was not the weather but to spend time in a place I loved. I suppose it’s horses for courses.
There is a reason why our country looks like it does and it isn’t that we enjoy long, dry, warm and sunny springs and summers. Our changeable weather is responsible for the beauty of our countryside, not least during the changing seasons. Spending a week in summer, curling up in your caravan, sheltering from the driving rain, is, I suppose, the price we pay for all that natural beauty. As the rain continues to fall today, to the untrained eye it seems like the land is breathing a big sigh of relief and turning green again.
The strange thing I am feeling is that this cold, dank period of weather feels unusual. I have become so used to waking up to the sun blazing away in the sky, that a day like today, with thick drizzle and slate grey skies feels like an outlier. Where has our summer gone?Why is the British summer always so terrible? Let’s follow the hordes down to Greece – on holiday! What on earth will I feel like in the summer of 2026 when, having booked numerous UK trips and outings after this year’s glorious summer, it pisses down, as it always seemed to do in the old days?
In fact, I do not remember a single great summer from childhood. If we went anywhere, which was inevitably a day trip with my grandparents, or if I really struck lucky, a week at West Bay in Dorset, all I remember was sploshing around trying to avoid not just the showers, but the continuous rainfall that followed us around. No wonder my generation has become a sour, miserable Daily Mail reading whingers, harking back to a golden age that never happened.
I’d be happy to be away on my holidays in Britain this week, peering through the rain at some of my favourite places and structures, like the Forth Rail Bridge, the Ribblehead Viaduct and the Royal Albert Bridge. (There’s usually a train involved, I’m afraid.) And I’d probably prefer to be away in Britain than sweltering through the horrendous heatwaves currently blighting the European summer.
Let it rain for a week or two in order to bring the land back to life and fill the reservoirs, with maybe an Indian Summer before we descend into deepest, darkest winter, which to my mind means from the start of September to the end of February. I’m still glad it’s raining for a change. If it rains until September, ending summer a little too early, I might have something else to say about it, but for now I’m not exactly singing in the rain, but I’m not crying, either. Things can only get wetter?
