Summer Weather Report

          British summers are like life itself: unpredictable. You can plan everything down to the last detail, but we all know that picnics and BBQs are better regarded as aspirations than as fixtures and that, when anticipating any summer entertainment, it is prudent not to pin all your hopes on fair weather. Always have a backup contingency, like an awning, for instance.

          Mind you, this very unpredictability can add joie de vivre to proceedings if, and when, it works in your favour. I’m sure that’s why I so enjoyed last week’s Welsh jaunt, which took us, with friends, to the Mawddach estuary for a couple of days. We walked quite a lot, along the estuary’s disused railway track, through the hilly hinterland and across the bridge to the seaside resort of Barmouth. The terrain is famously attractive, and it certainly looked splendid in its sun-soaked summer colours. But the extra bonus was the retro-experience of being in Barmouth when its staycationing population was out in force, enjoying the beach, lapping up the ice cream, scoffing the fish and chips and thronging the novelty shops. It was as though the place had been in hibernation and nothing had changed since the advent of continental package holidays left it stranded, though there was one notably contemporary addition to its attractions – a coffee shop offering artisanal brews for city-folk like us, desperate for our preferred caffeine concoction.

          We were glamping nearby – that is to say our friends were – and, despite my enthusiasm for campervanning, I did envy their spacious and exotically furnished tent, their outdoor, covered kitchen/diner, their boy-scout firepit and their composting loo (though I did not make use of it) which was set, modestly, some distance away. The rain and winds that had been forecast arrived, conveniently, at bedtime on our last night so, when we decamped the next day, it was with the satisfaction of having snatched so much summertime pleasure from the jaws of a nasty-looking, approaching weather front.

          Life goes on whatever the weather – and so does death. We were attending a funeral service (or stone-setting, since it was a Jewish ceremony) one afternoon last week and everyone had come expecting to get drenched by rain. But the sun shone down on us and, afterwards, the official in charge of the cemetery told us that, in all his 25 years there, it had never once rained during a stone-setting. If he did consider it miraculous, his faith was not sufficiently robust to have told us in advance that brollies would not be required. More likely, his memory is selective, as is mine.

          Our lucky streak continued when we had lunch to mark a friend’s birthday. We took a table on the pavement terrace of a Didsbury restaurant (under the awning, ‘just in case’) and, in due course, hailed several friends who were passing on errands. We persuaded them to join us for a drink and thus augmented the jollity of the occasion. Serendipity, yes – but weather-enhanced.

          Even a daytrip to Liverpool coincided with a cloud-free afternoon, though it was an indoor event that took me there. I went, with friends, to see an exhibition at the Walker Gallery of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s life and works. His work I was already familiar with: his life, not at all. I learned, among other things, that he created a public image deliberately, changing his name from McIntosh and posing, artistically dressed, for a publicity photo. I’m sure he would have made an avid, successful and very stylish Instagrammer.

          We walked back to the station in warm sunshine and I reckoned that I have enjoyed many a fair-weather spell this summer. But, even if I hadn’t, I would not complain. Variable weather keeps me on my toes and enhances my appreciation of the difference. That’s life.