BST: Bucketing, Stotting, Teeming

this is a pane

Is the drought still on?

We’ve had enough rain here to float an ark. There was so much of the stuff yesterday that Newcastle United’s friendly game against Fiorentina was flooded out after 63 minutes. It takes some deluge to cause the abandonment of a football game.

With the nights starting to draw in slowly but steadily, and retailers eyeing up their Christmas push, another summer is slipping by in a  haze of drizzle; a trait of the season in recent years. The odd nice day has been heavily outnumbered by miserable, grey, often rain-filled washouts.

why go abroad?

This is bad news for those businesses hoping to attract extra trade as more people opt to holiday at home because of current financial constraints. A holiday spent under an umbrella rather than a parasol will have families redoubling their efforts to escape the UK at whatever cost next year, seeking destinations where sunshine, while not guaranteed, is more likely to predominate.

Then, as those early summer drought warnings become distant memories, we will be informed that the prolonged rain has ruined many crops and the knock-on effect of this will be higher food prices in the shops. Finally, we will put our clocks back and say good riddance to another miserable summer, and hello to an autumn during which we will turn on our heating systems that will burn fuel in accordance with the price hikes initiated by the utility companies. It looks like many of us will be tightening our belts and scarves this coming winter.   

a metaphor

They say that the greenhouse effect is making our planet warmer. If this is true, then I think the north-east of England must be situated right next to a broken pane.