The end of Spring

Normally we'd be celebrating the end of Spring as heralding the start of Summer. But marking it as the beginning of the following Winter is a bit unusual.  The Met Office, however, have issued a "yellow warning" of snow. The only thing I can recommend regarding yellow snow is that you don't eat it, but in any case if the Met Office is warning of snow, I reckon swimming cossies and Bermuda shorts are probably the best bet.

It's not that I don't trust the Met Office, except of course that I don't. It just strikes me that it's a Government-funded agency in a spending contraction, with the opportunity to speak directly to the public. Which means that it's in the interests of the people who manage the Met Office to come up with newsworthy weather all the time. "A quiet few days" isn't going to stave off the cuts - but they need to, especially now they've all bought houses in Exeter when they previously lived in Bracknell. No, we need constant yellow, lime, puce or orange warnings - not red ones, of course, as that would imply something might actually happen.

No, my money's on a dull few days with a drop of rain. Not so much as to bring the drought to an end - as it's the longest drought since records began in the Cenozoic - and definitely not enough snow to justify a yellow warning. Call me an old cynic, but that's how I reckon it is.