Bad Weather Betsy

January 23, 2017 by Ray Morgan

I don't know why, but I love inclement weather. You should have seen me when it snowed a couple of weeks ago, instagramming the sight of the frankly wet and disappointing flakes spinning down in front of a Mr-Tumnus-style lamp post (this is how romantically I view snow, the lamp post was outside a second hand car dealership).

It wasn't even *that* snowy - this isn't Canada, or Narnia - but my heart still fluttered with happiness. I walked home through it, stopping to take endless pictures just for myself, so I could be like "that car is slightly covered in snow, and that one AND THAT ONE" - it's a sickness, really.

We have a spreadsheet at work of who lives closest to the office ie. who HAS to go in on snow days and even though I'm one of them, I still was beside myself that there was snow. I don't want a snow day off work, I just want to look outside my window and see everything covered in white, so the grey old concrete world looks like Kendal mint cake for the day.

But I digress. That was snow. Now it's FOG. Yeah. It's pretty foggy out there. I have been dog sitting and I took the Sweetest Westie In The World (George) for a foggy weekend walk down to the beach. It was glorious. People walked in silhouette, and we couldn't see far ahead of us, just George's white bum wiggling along the sand. Then the fog horns came. Loud, booming, yet oddly soft, grave and low. George looked a bit miffed (as in 'WTF is that?'), but I loved it. The sheer atmosphere of it made my heart go all big, and there I was with my camera again, snapping away (dogs never look at the camera btw do they, I was going "George! George! Georgie! Georgie Porge! Look!Look!" for about 10mins before he deigned to glance my way).

Fog makes me feel cosy when I'm inside, and vaguely Victorian when I'm out. I can clomp down a fog-swathed road in boots and a long coat and think things like "It's a real pea-souper!" while tapping my cane on the pavement. I'm kidding. I don't have a cane. But if I did, fog would be the perfect weather to swish it about in.

I think there's something about this weather that makes me want to write. It makes me think of Sunday afternoons as a kid, post-roast, and it always seemed to be raining. Mum and Gran would be asleep on the settee, my sister would be listening to the Top 40, my Dad was washing up. Left to my own devices I'd clash away on my Mum's old typewriter, making up stories, too cold to go outside and too full of roast potatoes to do anything else. I'd write Enid Blyton rip-offs, full of seaside adventures and mystery. I'd never finish them, but at the time with the clicks and tings of the typewriter, with it all dark and cold and rainy outside, I was the cosiest kid in the world.

One thing I don't get is when people see me in my hat, scarf, gloves, knee-high woolly socks over my jeans etc and say "You're all done up for winter!". Yes. I think. That's because it's f***ing winter. Pardon my French. But I love nothing more than getting all wrapped up, and getting out there. Standing on the beach, listening to fog horns, revelling in the poor weather, desperately trying to get a dog to look at me.