It Seems that The Man Upstairs Just Can’t Please The British these days, and as a result we are seeing some really odd weather patterns. One thing is certain, it’s not typical weather for June!
I suppose it all began back in March when the national news was reporting that much of the UK was suffering from a shortage of water, due to low rainfall for the previous two winters. Rivers and reservoirs were low and in some cases had practically dried up, and as well as issuing bans on hose-pipes in most of the south of England, the water authorities stressed the need to conserve water, to avoid the need to turn off the supplies and take emergency measures.
I remember one year back in the 1970′s when this happened, and the water was turned off to houses. People had to queue at standpipes in the street to get water, and these were only turned on several times a day. This meant using every container that you could to carry water back to the house, to limit flushing of toilets, and no baths or showers of course.
Things were looking rather dire, but I guess enough people offered up prayers to the man upstairs, and after a few weeks of glorious sunshine at the end of March, as Easter arrived the heavens opened, and the UK saw rain, plenty of it.
Not only did the drought situation end, but with it raining for practically a biblical 40 days and 40 nights in a row, the lakes, reservoirs and rivers filled up, in many cases to normal levels and above.
FInally, probably after lots of people complaining about all the rain, we had several weeks of nice weather, with lots of sunshine, and no rain, but then the ground dried up, making it hard to work in the garden, the grass grew tall making it an effort to cut, and I suspect that a lot of people were complaining about this, and finally the man upstairs had enough.
So when the Queen’s Jubilee weekend arrived, he had no doubt had enough of the complaining, and turned on the taps again, causing peoplewanting to go to the celebrations to get wet, and in some cases causing events to be cancelled.
The whining continued, and so in the past week we have seen almost continual rain, with the same forecast for the next seven days as well, and yesterday parts of the south of England saw a month’s rainfall in a matter of hours.
Is this just an unusual pattern of weather that we are experiencing, or is there really someone upstairs who has had enough of our complaining, and after thousands of years has come to the conclusion that mankind will never be happy and grateful, and it’s time to drown out yet another summer.
I know that over Easter we bought a lot of wood and built a deck in the back garden, and having completed it couldn’t even sit out there for the next month because of the rain. I am seriously thinking that we maybe ought to have thought about building an ark instead. It might be more practical in the long run.
Do you enjoy seeing the funny side of religion? If so you might find this collection of Religious Jokes amusing. I am sure that God (if he/she does exist) enjoys playing tricks on us mere mortals. What do you think?
Saturday was Debbie’s birthday, and so we decided to drive up to Oxford, which is only about an hour away from us, and have a nice day out.
We also wanted to see Alice’s Shop, which is the actual shop where the REAL Alice In Wonderland stopped to buy sweets. It’s a tiny shop, but aside from being horribly crowded and tiny (it’s about the same size as our kitchen), it was just selling highly overpriced junk, so sadly we didn’t buy anything there, and I was hoping to find something for my daughters. Alice Liddell also has a local connection for us, as she is buried in a churchyard in Lyndhurst, in The New Forest not far from where we live.
Bournemouth is one of the finest seaside towns on the south coast of England, and it has a lot to offer the tourist at any time of the year.
