157 - Under The Weather...

A couple of days ago I was bemoaning the fact that I couldn’t go out and play golf in the glorious weather due to having hay fever. A quick look outside tells me that it is now just hay fever keeping me indoors as the decent weather has now well and truly disappeared. Ah well, summer was good this year, all two weeks of it.

The local media was in uproar as United Utilities imposed a hosepipe ban on the North West of England. The company blamed the lowest rainfall in 50 years for the ban claiming that the reservoirs that service this part of the country were now at 50% capacity and without significant rain we could be on the verge of a drought.

No sooner had they banned watering your rhodendrums than the weather turned and certainly not for the better. In the last two weeks we have rain broken up by drizzle followed by more rain. Ideal conditions if you happen to be a duck, rotten for the rest of us.

A spokesman for United Utilities was dragged onto the TV ironically in the middle of a downpour to explain why the ban was in place.

He was asked what he was going to do about it (save flying over some Native American’s to perform a rain dance and imposing a hosepipe ban I’m not sure what else he could do).

It seems we have got enough water but if we keep squirting it over our hyacinths there is a chance we could run out despite living in a part of the country renowned for its rain. Even with a Burkina Faso-like rainy season lasting a couple of months the ban will be in place for the foreseeable future.

I should welcome this brief change of weather with open arms. The local courses will get a good soaking which will help soften up the fairways and greens, the rain will get them back to looking their best and the smug bastards who can play in the afternoons while the rest of us are at the coalface will get routinely drenched!

Maybe suffering with hay fever now isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world. By the time the plants have stopped spewing pollen into the air the weather should have changed again leaving me to reap the rewards of all of Mother Nature’s (and the groundskeeper’s) hard work.