My DH is weather mad. He watches all the TV forecasts he can and in between gets an extra fix by catching up with a special App that shows radar pictures of approaching weather systems.
I have no faith in any of this and am more likely to put my trust in pine cones that open or seaweed that shrivels. I don’t bother with experts; I look out of the window and if the sky is dark and heavy I take an umbrella.
Weather forecasts have got longer and longer and lots of sophisticated computer generated imagery is used. I preferred those from long ago when they were simple enough to have escaped from Play School, and bits of fuzzy felt symbols were stuck on to simple maps. My attention span and sense of belief could cope with that. Not any more. Now it’s all high tech and jet streams and troughs and ridges and strange phrases that only meteorologists use.
At the end of each forecast I could honestly not tell you what the weather is supposed to be for the coming days. I could tell you if a man or woman had delivered it and if it was one of my favourites. I like Tomasz Schafernaker who is a wonderful artist as well as being edgy, but nice. I notice that he has grown his hair and that Chris Fawkes (a young man every mother would welcome as a son-in-law) sounds as pleasant as ever. I would be more likely to believe what he told me if I actually listened.
But I don’t listen. I notice what each person is wearing and mentally applaud some of the outfits while screwing my face up at others. I notice how over the last months suit jackets have got tighter, buttons stretched over expanding stomachs. The women don’t seem to have this problem and look trim in their usual fitted or draped dresses. I expect a lot of work in the gym achieves this – that or modern corsetry. My guess is that women weather forecasters wear magic knickers, and I like to imagine them tearing them off with a flourish as soon as the cameras are switched off. I might not learn what will happen outside but the weather forecast can make me smile.
