Shiver Me Timbers Or Blow Yer House Down?

One of the many talents that British people possess is the ability to moan about the weather. Many joke about this, and how we should introduce moaning as an Olympic event in 2012, but it is actually true. Think about it; when you get in a taxi, the first thing people mention is the weather. The second is if the taxi driver has been busy, but no matter his response, how busy he has been is down to one thing. The weather.

We complain that it rain's all summer long, yet on the rare occasions that the sun peeks from behind the clouds for half an hour, we all complain that it is too hot. Similarly, too much sun, and we all long for a spot of the wet stuff. Thunderstorms are greeted like a soldier returning from Afghanistan, and everyone comments about how it will "clear the air". However, the arrival of said storm in November leaves people grumbling because they can't go to the pub.

The winter brings it's own set of problems. Folks living in nice homes in the middle of valleys, or right next to large rivers are flabbergasted when, after a few days rain, they suddenly find that fish are swimming around the sofa, and the milk is being delivered by boat instead of by van. I don't understand the mentality. I live by the coast and know full well that when the wind is up, and the rain is persisting it down that a walk along the prom is likely to result in the good boys at the RNLI being called out to attempt to find me as I bob around in the Irish sea, and a headline in the Evening Gazette will announce to the locals the levels of my stupidity. If you live in these areas, there are certain things you have to expect.

The one weather condition that trumps all others is snow. The country prays every year for a white Christmas because, you know, all your Christmas' should be white. The second that a layer of the cold powdery stuff settles though, and the country shudders to a shivering halt, seemingly unable to grasp the concept of just 'getting on with it'. These past two months have been more of the same. Grit, which is pretty much just salt, is thrown on all the major roads, and some level of movement in the outside world begins to take place again. For a day. Then we have more snow, and everything stops again. And so it continues, until the day that local councils announce, in hushed and slightly embarrassed voice, that they are running out of grit.

This to me makes no sense. If all we need is salt to start breaking down the ice and snow, then why aren't people raiding Cash & Carry's for the catering size packs of sodium chloride. Better yet, in case those lovely people that run these countries haven't noticed, we happen to be on an island. Surrounding us is what is know as an ocean, a large body of water that they seem to have forgotten, contains salt.

Every year, these weather conditions come to test us, and every year I want to literally slap those that complain about it. Sure, poor Mrs Smythe being airlifted out of her two up, two down when the water level has reached her hips is a shame, but why complain? Seriously. Head over to New Orleans and ask some of the lovely folk if they would like to swap places with Mrs Smythe. I'm sure they would. And, when the sun makes a prolonged appearance, bathing us in it's heat, before whinging about how uncomfortable it is as you lay in your bed, think about those people lying on dirt floors, suffering temperatures so extreme that nothing will grow, suffering malnourishment and disease, praying that one day some folks from Comic Relief will come over, shoot a little film, and provide clean drinking water.

And when the entire country is plastered in snow and looks from space as though Britain is a cake that someone has just covered in icing, and we sit there on our corner sofas, in our warm clothes, with our central heating, watching HD television we have recorded on our Sky+ that is beaming forth from the 42" plasma TV bolted to the wall, just think how little you are really suffering. Especially when, half the world away, an entire country just had its whole world literally crumble around it's ears, and bury half of its population. A country where now, for its residents, daily routine involves waking up in the makeshift tent, leaving to see if the aid that has been promised has arrived yet, and walking around whilst trying to avoid the bodies of the dead that lie, decaying, out in the open.

I'm sure the weather is the last thing the people of Haiti have on their minds. My mind, for one, is with them.