Weather Stories

by Kate Allen

April 7 - April 13

Wendy Hurrell

Well, after a somewhat glorious weekend where our local park rolled out the bouncy castles and ice cream vans, and the eggs my daughters nursery had been caring for had started to hatch, I have to say this week has been somewhat disappointing. The wind started to pick up ... possibly the wind of change!

I made a trip up to South Bucks to be greeted by some really rather gusty winds, it certainly blew some cobwebs away. 

Overnight on Tuesday, that already gusty wind really picked up and along with it a band of heavy rain crossed over our region. Bringing with it between 10 and 20 mm of the wet stuff. Really good for the gardeners amongst us. Unfortunately, I hadn't quite made it out into the garden when the weather was warm to get our veggies on the go!

It's all pretty typical for April, we all know the song "Drip drip drop little April showers"! In fact last April, I remember it snowing! So we are getting off lightly.

On Wednesday morning we peered out of the curtains to a somewhat grey damp start following the overnight shenanigans but I really did enjoy telling London not to be disappointed as, post 8:30am .... what a fantastic day it was. Lovely, the winds dropped and finally, sunshine at last.

Of course by mid week, our attention was drawn to the upcoming Bank Holiday weekend. The big one! Not one but two bank holidays! The papers were splashing around the term "WASH OUT" in the headlines but we remained somewhat optimistic. Predicting some, but not all rain. We even said the sunshine word!

Thankfully, our local area sports some rather super soft play centres which saved at least part of the rather grey and damp end of the week!

Where exactly was this sunshine, we were supposed to see at least a little bit!

There was a little bit of an East / West dived as the clearer skies and sunshine stayed across the west country. Having lived in the west country for a few years, I have to say, it was never bright over Easter. I feel robbed! While the cloud, mist and drizzle stayed sitting across the south east.

All the predictions of sunshine vanished as my family and I walked around the aquadrome in the rain fighting off the aggressive swans and Canadian geese. Scary. Still there something quite nice about a deserted, calm, aquadrome, in the rain on a bank holiday!

Still, it was Easter, after all. There is always chocolate to comfort oneself!

Spring!

So, when exactly will Spring spring? Have to say, its not looking likely this week but then .......

March 9 - March 15

It took just one week of mild, sunny weather for the cherry blossoms to unfold, the daffodils to smile upwards and the queen bees to bustle out of hibernation. An explosion of spring this week thanks to 68 hours of sunshine and a temperature of almost 17 degrees on Monday.

I made the most of the sunny Sunday evening dreamily cycling around Regent’s Park, looking at the fine buildings, hearing the chatter of chilled Londoners and smelling that fragrant flow of new spring in the air. However, once the sun went down, the pub garden at Primrose Hill cooled quickly.

I spent Monday afternoon watching the sunshine split light and shade over the tree branches and gravestones in Highgate Cemetery. Nature seemed to be winning in this two hundred year old tussle – as ivy roots grew over once pristine odes to long dead Victorians.

I spared a thought for the literary greats George Elliot, Karl Marx and Douglas Adams and was moved by the stone dedicated to Eddie Rosen – son of Children’s Laureate, Michael Rosen. I still have his autograph in a book of his funny stories like Eddie and the Shreddies.

The sun was still shining on Tuesday of course and I headed to the Southbank to meet a friend for a cheeky cider. I always get about as far as the Tate before branching off towards the nearest tube. But I carried on this time, past City Hall, through Butlers Wharf, which suddenly made me feel as if I was walking though a Spanish street.

There were clouds on the horizon by then and a mean wind whipping along the river so I jumped onto a packed tube at Bermondsey to go back home.

Not too much else to report.  I am in the dreamlike haze of early spring. It’s all up from here – now even the days are longer than the nights since we passed the Spring Equinox on Friday. But I think we’d be a tiny bit too optimistic to assume this very warm weather will carry us seamlessly into summer…

By Kate Allen

2nd March - 8th March

Monday morning and it seemed that Spring was still in the air. A rare day off to spend on my own too so there was also a little bit of a Spring in my step. The sun was out so I walked to nursery to deliver the little one and then spent the day wandering around town, desperately trying to find some fabulous new outfit or another for my forthcoming hen weekend!

All pretty uninspiring, so I sat outside a coffee shop for a few hours reading before my time slipped away and it was time to get back to nursery.

The cloud and rain returned on Tuesday, nothing especially interesting happened during my day as I was avoiding being outside for too long. Over the day we had approximately 14mm of rain, so I am glad I managed to stay indoors.  

It was quite a mild week on the whole, with temperatures mostly remaining in double figures. 11 / 12 degrees. It got a little cooler on Wednesday and Thursday but we had some fairly decent sunny spells. One thing I have been noticing is the daylight.

 I realise this has been happening gradually for a few weeks now but I have really started to notice how light it is when I am walking home from nursery. We have two routes you see, a Summer time route and a Winter time route. The Summertime one takes us down passed some allotments so we can see how all the veggies are growing. For the first time since last September, we took this route home. Summer is on its way?

Overnight on Thursday we had a real dip, with temperatures down to -1 in Heathrow. I thought the chilly nights were over. A certain member of my family is currently refusing to use blankets or a duvet. So inevitably wakes around 2am complaining of being cold. Grrrr! Not good when you have to be up at 3:45am!

A frosty start to Friday but really beautiful. We got to the park which is suddenly far more appealing than in recent months!

The weekend was fairly decent, I think! The time had come for my girl friends to make a hen of me so really, the weather didn't play too much of a part. We took in a show in the West End and ate fine food in Kings Cross and from what I noticed, it was relatively mild, or was that just the cava warming my cockles?