Summer in Wales...

It's August, it's supposed to be summer. The forecasters, back in April, promised us a 'barbecue summer', with temperatures soaring and lots of glorious sun. A lot of folk decided they'd holiday in UK this year instead of going abroad. There were going to be lots of outdoor events. The International Eisteddfod was being held in Bala in August. It would be wonderful...



Now they are backtracking. July has had double the usual rainfall. There have been floods. A local carnival was cancelled because the field was knee-deep in mud. The Brecon Show has been called off, for the first time in 50 years! 'Ah', the forecasters are saying, 'it's very hard to predict the weather.'



I've got news for them. We KNEW that! If they wanted an accurate forecast, they should have said 'Well, it probably won't snow this summer,' and they'd have been right. (Well, right so far, anyway.)



But this is Wales, where we export rain. (Seriously, we do. There are valleys flooded to form reservoirs that feed the industrial centres like Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham with lovely Welsh rainwater.) So should we really believe anything the Metmen tell us? Of course we shouldn't. But we do. Every year we hope that this year will bring us the summers we remember from our misty youth, when every day dawned bright and warm, and even our parents cast off their woolly layers and basked in the heat. Dads in shorts, showing pasty white hairy shins. Mums in cotton summer frocks, but with a cardie kept handy just in case. And we would strip down to our bathing suits and frolic like lambs...



I'm sure it rained back then, as well, but we don't remember it. It was always sunny...



And my three-year-old grandson, born at the end of a blazing July, has yet to experience a real summer. Oh, well, there's always next year.