Wednesday, June 16, 2010
COME ON, MET OFFICE, COME CLEAN AND TELL US WHAT'S REALLY WRONG WITH THE WEATHER
As you can see, I survived my heart surgery (four weeks ago as I write) and am recovering well.
Last thing I remember on the Monday of the operation is being wheeled down to the anaesthetic room at 08:00, where a regular bed jam started to form - it's a veritable production line there on operating days. I glanced to my left, where a somewhat apprehensive-looking elderly lady lay on her bed. Then somebody must have sneaked something into my canula because the next thing I knew, I was back on the ward, nearly 36 hours later.
When my wife came in to see me late the next day, she told me that I had taken a long time to wake up after the operation so had remained on the critical care unit for longer than usual. That was complete news to me. So Monday 8am to Tuesday early evening is a complete blank.
By Saturday, however, I was allowed to go home and so here I am, complete with nicely healed up 8" scar down my chest and a state-of-the-art Carpentier-Edwards Perimount Magna Ease bovine prosthetic valve quietly getting on with its business inside my aorta. Oh, I do hope it keeps going for a good while yet - I'm not sure I could go through that again! It's still a shock to look down at my scar and remind myself that I have had heart surgery - too weird!
Anyway, that wasn't intended to be the subject of this post - I want to know what's gone wrong with the weather and to what extent the powers that be think it's our fault.
When we moved from Dorset to Essex in 2004, that summer we spent nearly all our spare time in the garden. We ate breakfast, lunch and supper outside a lot and even decided to buy a boat as our village was coastal.
In 2005 we were able to get out on the Blackwater a fair bit, but an easterly wind began to blow and never really let up before we moved to Norfolk in late 2008. We more or less gave up taking the boat out as the Blackwater was just too choppy most of the time. Our boat was ok to force 4-5, but it was no fun. We know that East Anglia tends to be a bit windier than the south of England, but in the south there are long periods of calm weather, just as there were in Essex in 2004.
Every summer since, we have experienced unceasing winds throughout the summer,often coming from the east or north east, which makes them cold, even in months when it ought to be warm.
Once upon a time when a high pressure system settled over the country it meant warm southerly winds from the continent. Not any more - now it means sunshine with cold air being funnelled down from Scandinavia - and it seems to affect the whole country.
I mean, here we are, in the middle of June and we are still running the central heating (only to achieve 18 DegC indoors) or lighting the woodburner in the evening to keep warm. Outside the sky is grey and overcast and that blasted wind just doesn't stop blowing. It's ruined four summers now and with the distinctly indifferent Spring we endured, it looks like we might just slide into Autumn without having a proper summer and any sustained fine weather at all. Remember when June was called 'Flaming June'? What a joke that name is today.
I am surprised not to find more traffic on the 'net as to what is happening to the weather and more comment on the subject from bodies like the Met Office, whose own predictions seem to have lost credibility lately. Does that mean we're encountering weather they are just not expecting and they have no idea why? They keep telling us that temperatures are close to the seasonal average and that this Spring or that Summer was the warmest since records began, but how come we aren't enjoying them? Doesn't make sense to me at all.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, although I quite enjoy some of the wilder ones, but I can't help thinking that there's something going on with the weather that we are just not being told, because it's too awful to contemplate - that we are in fact sliding into an extended period of colder weather that might even be described as a mini-ice age. The implications for energy costs and the general difficulty of living, keeping mobile, growing crops and feeding the population are all quite frightening if such a change comes about. With national economies already fragile, prolonged cold weather could also be extremely damaging to the prospects for recovery.
What do you think?
As you can see, I survived my heart surgery (four weeks ago as I write) and am recovering well.
Last thing I remember on the Monday of the operation is being wheeled down to the anaesthetic room at 08:00, where a regular bed jam started to form - it's a veritable production line there on operating days. I glanced to my left, where a somewhat apprehensive-looking elderly lady lay on her bed. Then somebody must have sneaked something into my canula because the next thing I knew, I was back on the ward, nearly 36 hours later.
When my wife came in to see me late the next day, she told me that I had taken a long time to wake up after the operation so had remained on the critical care unit for longer than usual. That was complete news to me. So Monday 8am to Tuesday early evening is a complete blank.
By Saturday, however, I was allowed to go home and so here I am, complete with nicely healed up 8" scar down my chest and a state-of-the-art Carpentier-Edwards Perimount Magna Ease bovine prosthetic valve quietly getting on with its business inside my aorta. Oh, I do hope it keeps going for a good while yet - I'm not sure I could go through that again! It's still a shock to look down at my scar and remind myself that I have had heart surgery - too weird!
Anyway, that wasn't intended to be the subject of this post - I want to know what's gone wrong with the weather and to what extent the powers that be think it's our fault.
When we moved from Dorset to Essex in 2004, that summer we spent nearly all our spare time in the garden. We ate breakfast, lunch and supper outside a lot and even decided to buy a boat as our village was coastal.
In 2005 we were able to get out on the Blackwater a fair bit, but an easterly wind began to blow and never really let up before we moved to Norfolk in late 2008. We more or less gave up taking the boat out as the Blackwater was just too choppy most of the time. Our boat was ok to force 4-5, but it was no fun. We know that East Anglia tends to be a bit windier than the south of England, but in the south there are long periods of calm weather, just as there were in Essex in 2004.
Every summer since, we have experienced unceasing winds throughout the summer,often coming from the east or north east, which makes them cold, even in months when it ought to be warm.
Once upon a time when a high pressure system settled over the country it meant warm southerly winds from the continent. Not any more - now it means sunshine with cold air being funnelled down from Scandinavia - and it seems to affect the whole country.
I mean, here we are, in the middle of June and we are still running the central heating (only to achieve 18 DegC indoors) or lighting the woodburner in the evening to keep warm. Outside the sky is grey and overcast and that blasted wind just doesn't stop blowing. It's ruined four summers now and with the distinctly indifferent Spring we endured, it looks like we might just slide into Autumn without having a proper summer and any sustained fine weather at all. Remember when June was called 'Flaming June'? What a joke that name is today.
I am surprised not to find more traffic on the 'net as to what is happening to the weather and more comment on the subject from bodies like the Met Office, whose own predictions seem to have lost credibility lately. Does that mean we're encountering weather they are just not expecting and they have no idea why? They keep telling us that temperatures are close to the seasonal average and that this Spring or that Summer was the warmest since records began, but how come we aren't enjoying them? Doesn't make sense to me at all.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, although I quite enjoy some of the wilder ones, but I can't help thinking that there's something going on with the weather that we are just not being told, because it's too awful to contemplate - that we are in fact sliding into an extended period of colder weather that might even be described as a mini-ice age. The implications for energy costs and the general difficulty of living, keeping mobile, growing crops and feeding the population are all quite frightening if such a change comes about. With national economies already fragile, prolonged cold weather could also be extremely damaging to the prospects for recovery.
What do you think?
