My story is a local farmer in our hamlet... who has since died with his boots on in his little one up one down ( and he hadn't gone upstairs for a long time) with a gangrenous leg that had rotted of. He was a great shy warm hearted red faced blue overalled local who only ever ventured out of the hamlet on his mobilette to get essential supplies. He was a bachelor and lived for his cows. Anyway every morning for the first few years we would meet him in the farmyard and exchange jokes etc.....Had to be before around 11.30 when he would get a bottle from his stash in one of the barns and disappear into his house, followed by a local postman, worker, or similar ... to emerge again around 3.15 even more red faced than ever. Any way after a few years of having weather reporting from him on a daily basis when in our faulty French we would ask him what it was going to do today and he would raise a finger and study the clouds before giving us an accurate forecast for the day and pehraps a few days ahead.... well one day our French was now becoming good enough to have several sentence conversations, and after marvelling to all our UK friends and visitors about country folk and the weather etc etc, we dared to ask him his secrets over the weather reading. He looked at me, cocked his head, smiled, and said 'le meteo' ( the tv weather programme) winked and walked off to his cows. A classic
Morning all, the fog and frost returned overnight and it is still well below freezing point. If the British are obsessive about the weather, so are the French. There are many different companies providing a forecasting service, and there is usually a difference between what they say is coming our way. My neighbour Bernard confines himself to the house when it is cold, but when I do see him the first thing he will talk about is the weather. I am reminded of when I bought this house. I needed to come down in the February to sort out things like bank accounts, water supplies etc. It was just the two rooms that hadn't been lived in for ten years or more, had windows that wouldn't shut, and two 5 amp power points. Bringing a camping gas stove, a fan heater and a camp bed along with numerous blankets I knew I could survive for a couple of days. The man we bought the house from, another Bernard, was extremely concerned that I would freeze to death, and at 8.00 am was knocking on the door to insist that I went and had some breakfast with him. It had been cold and I was dressed in all the clothes I had with me, but as I sat at the table with him, enjoying his hot coffee, I found that he had his heating system set at maximum, and I started to overheat. He lived on his own and was happy to have company, so as I finally managed to excuse myself the sweat was running into my eyes, and the blast of cold as I said good-bye at his front door made me very happy that the car had a good heater. He was a very kind man, who invited an elderly lady from the retirement home to join him every Sunday for dinner. At 10.30 am he would drive the six miles to collect her, and and 3.30 pm would drive her back. Always the same times, never more than five minutes difference. One Sunday there was a huge commotion going on in the lane with doctors and an ambulance in attendance. He had had a stroke while eating his dinner, and as he was carried out of the house on a stretcher, it was the last time I saw him as he died two days later.
My favourite weather reporting story is of a student returning to his former school and being asked by the head what he was doing now. "I work for the Meteorological Office," he said proudly. "It's an amazing place these days. The technology has developed so rapidly in all areas. We can tell what the weather's like without even looking outside." "I always thought that was how you did it," the head replied.
Morning, Dave; morning, all. Darkish. 'Gravity Falls' playing downstairs, Mrs Andy's sleepy breathing to my right. Matej is in bed, but by the sound of it he enjoyed his baked beans last night. All is well in the toprankin household. <sigh>
Morning all, a lovely winters day, with bright sun, yet the temperature is only a couple of degrees above freezing. Daughters car is in hospital, and her usual man who services it cannot tell what is the matter with it without a computer with the right program. A far cry from the days when you would whip out the plugs, stick them in the oven for a few minutes, then go on your way.
Morning all from a drizzly St. Helier. It's supposed to be 6 degrees warmer than yesterday, but it didn't feel like it when I went to the shop.