Vagaries

I live in a �don�t like the weather, wait five minutes� city.

I also work in a office that has only two small opaque windows which face into the ten storey well between our building and the one next door. As a result of this I can generally tell when the weather takes a particularly positive or negative turn because of the change in the opaque light, but not much more than that.

So being house-bound this week has given me a new view on the vagaries of our weather.

When I started writing this piece, mere moments ago, it was raining heavily and horizontally in a wind that was rattling the windows. Looking out of the living room windows I could see blue sky in the direction the weather was heading. Looking out of the back hallway windows I could see blue sky in the direction the weather was coming from. Now that blue sky is overhead and the wind has died entirely, but I don�t expect either of those things to last.

Now granted, it is Spring here. Usually a volatile season. September usually brings much rain mixed with beautiful sunny days, which become more and more frequent. October is usually more stable and increasingly warmer. But not this year. Two weekends ago we hit a warm and summery patch - for one Saturday - and I had high hopes for Writer�s Week to feature the house being thrown open with a pleasant breeze blowing out the winter damp.

Not a chance. To go with, rather than mock, my flu-ey state, the weather has blown and rained and not got above 15 degrees aside from for a few hours yesterday afternoon, and even then the sun didn�t come out.

I�m not going to complain about the rain. We�ve been in drought here for several years, so the rain is definitely welcome - even it means the weeds in the back yard are reaching window height but the weather doesn�t allow us any chance to get out and do something about them even if we were inclined that way. I am going to complain about the temperature though. The weather could hit the twenties and still rain and that would be fine. Great in fact. But I�ve been trying to put my winter coats in storage for a month now and keep having to get them out again, which is ridiculous given that it�s basically November.

I�m going out for dinner tonight for Alex and Pat�s combined birthdays, and will have to once again look wistfully at my new summer shoes sitting still neglected and pull on a pair of boots and a coat to brave the weather. But at least I�m getting out, I suppose.

I did go out yesterday afternoon to get the required birthday presents, and while feeling generally a lot better as soon as I hit the cold air I realised I wasn�t as good as I�d thought. Today my ears are blocked which is rather disconcerting, but I made myself eat a proper lunch to prepare for champagne and dinner tonight. Medicinal champagne only, of course.

Perhaps by then the weather will have cleared a bit and I won�t need a scarf and gloves. Or I can wait five minutes and it�ll offer me something different. Though the way this weeks going, it�ll probably be hail.

Happy Halloween!