When I was a kid, there used to be rhymes we’d chant on different
occasions. One was Windy weather, frosty weather, when the wind blows, we’ll
all blow together. I used to sing it with my boys when they were small,
making a game of the walk to school or the shops. We’d hold hands and run and
then on the all blow we’d swing together and collide into each other.
There was also When the North Wind doeth blow, and we shall have snow and
what will the robin do then, poor thing? He’ll sit in a barn to keep himself
warm and hide his head under his wing, poor thing. I was curious enough
about the latter to google it and discovered that it is British and believed to
date from the 16th century, which means that probably my ancestors
recited it when they were children.
Growing up in Liverpool I
don’t remember ever seeing a barn and the only robins would be on Christmas
cards. Sparrows, pigeons and gulls were the only birds with which I was
familiar. It’s different today because we have a garden and at this time of
year all kinds of birds are regular visits to the seeds, nuts, bread and other
scraps John puts out for them. We also do the same on our early morning walk
across the Leeds-Liverpool canal and the field that leads to Waterloo.
I’m reminded of these rhymes
due to the atrocious weather that has been hitting Britain and is still giving
so many people a miserable time. Fortunately Merseyside hasn’t come off too
badly. A week or so ago on Windy Wednesday the worst damage our property
suffered was a buckled fence panel and a toppled plant pot. We’ve had scarcely
any frost and some of last year’s geraniums are still flowering in a pot just
outside the back of the house.
Whenever my son, Iain, does
research for me, I always ask him to check the weather at times, such as
Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Easter and various bank holidays as I consider it
plays very much a part in our lives. There are certain years that stand out in
my memory. Early 1947 was when the snow seemed to last forever and snowman
lingered for ages as did the icy slides in the street and on the bombed holla
where there had once been a church. The summer that year was a hot one when the
tar between the cobbles in Whitefield Road melted and we’d poke at it with
lolly ice sticks. 1976 was the long hot dry summer during which I sat the exam
for Geography O level whilst pregnant with my youngest son, we also bought our
first car for which we paid a £100. We motored down to Dawlish in Devon, which
has been so much in the news lately because the storms put the railway out of
action. The car broke down on the way home and we had to wait from 10am until
midnight before the AA Relay came to our rescue and took us home. Daniel was
born in the autumn of that year after the rains finally came.
Daniel was to accompany me to Ireland during
the school summer holidays in the late 1980s. We took our bikes on the ferry
and cycled from Dublin into the Wicklow Hills, having never been there before
to stay with the relatives of a friend of church. I wanted to research an
historical romance set in Ireland in the reign of Richard II. It was unusually
hot and the tarmac stuck to our bike tyres and the tips of Daniel’s ears got
sunburnt and peeled. The house had no running water and an outside loo with no
main drains. Some water was collected from a tank on the roof but I remember
carrying a bucket to the river for water, too. Within two days the rains came
and we managed to get a lift in a van to Dublin where we stayed in a youth
hostel there. Unfortunately Dublin Castle was closed to the public as it was
being renovated. Today, I would have discovered that online before we left home
but at least I got the feel of the city and the experience came in useful when
I wrote not only FATEFUL ENCOUNTER but also my second saga FLOWERS ON THE
MERSEY set in Liverpool, Ireland and on a ship going to America during the
Irish Civil War.
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| As I have no photographs of us in Ireland or France, here is one of Daniel and I outside the lovely Ely Cathedral when he received his Open University Mathematical Science degree in 2006. |
Daniel also went with me to
France by train and hovercraft a year or so later. Another first for both of us
and the research that time was for an historical set during the time of Henry
V. We stayed in Calais for a couple of days but my plans to go further afield
were scuppered by the railways going on strike. The weather wasn’t too good
either. GREY is the word I’d use. Still it was an experience and the book
LOVE’S INTRIGUE was eventually published here and in France.
The weather this morning was
bright and sunny and temperatures did reach 10 degrees C, and lifted the
spirits but by 2pm it has clouded over and after visiting Caradoc Mission in
Seaforth for a Ladies Brunch, sitting at my desk finishing the blog I started a
week ago isn’t a bad place to be. Any minute now I expect it will rain.
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