First of the season
They say that simple things please simple minds and maybe that is true.
Yesterday, in a party of six, I set off on board a motor launch somewhere along the south coast of England for our first outing of 2017. The co-owners of the boat always refuse to have it put it in the water before mid-May on the grounds that the weather (and water) is far too cold for comfort any earlier.
As it happens, things were dull and cold early on – thus tending to support our co-owners’ contention – but were billed to become sunny from 11.00am onwards, perhaps with the odd shower.
That’s one advance of the 21st Century I have no problem with. Whatever else has failed to improve, weather forecasting does seem to have become more accurate since the glory days of Michael Fish and that funny little man in glasses with the goofy expression (was it Ian McCaskill?), when every two or three days supposedly-magnetic clouds would fall off the UK chart and spell out inappropriate words without anyone in BBC presentation noticing as our heroes advised the nation to either get out the sun tan oil or alternatively batten down the hatches.
The truth is that yesterday the sun did indeed come out as forecast at about 11.00am and thereafter, apart from suffering the effects of a ten-minute torrential downpour at about midday, we had an idyllic time of it. The boats out and about were few, champagne and gin & tonics were served early and regularly, and on cue we went ashore for an excellent pub lunch further up the estuary before returning home in time for tea.
Sometimes a day of doing not very much – well, apart from messing about in a boat – can become an oasis of calm contentment in an ocean of chaos and uncertainty.
(Hopefully that’s not mixing one too many metaphors for comfort or understanding).
