"We didn't move to Scotland for the weather," has been the most uttered phrase in my vocabulary after, "What? More sex?" and "What do you want for dinner?" And after the last 10 days it is now spoken without the slightest hint of irony.
The weather hasn't been awful (in fact, I've thought it was better than expected), but during the period of time the Wigtown Book Festival has taken place there has been an awful lot of rain. In fact, in accordance with all things British, it seems that if you have an event on then it's going to be screwed over by the weather. As I write this the sun is trying to break through and while this is not an unusual thing, we could have done with a lot more of it during the last days of September.
I'm concerned about voicing this publicly for reasons that will become obvious, but since we moved here there have been loads of absolutely glorious days; real summery days where shorts and sunglasses have been essential. However, if you had an event on since we've been here then there's a good chance you got saturated.
Let's look at that calendar...
We moved here on the 19th July on what was the warmest day I have encountered since we've been here. On July 22, we needed to go to Stranraer to buy a cooker and various other essential services/requirements. It was the day of their carnival and it absolutely tipped it down. July 22 was also the first day of the Wigtown Food Festival and it duly tipped it down here as well. The 23rd wasn't much better, but it was drier (it would, I believed at the time, have had to go some to be wetter). Then followed a week of what I really thought was nice weather (unless you spoke to people who have been living here a long time) and a few days of really nice weather (that even the locals accepted as good).
August 2nd, the day of the annual Wigtown show, was, for an early August day, on the wrong side of apocalyptic. It had been drizzling for most of the morning and as I reported in an earlier blog became torrential by early afternoon while I was walking the mile home. It was a complete and thorough wash out (for the fourth time in five years) but the food and craft tents did exceptional business and even the poultry show was patronised far more than you would imagine; although I doubt many of the people in the marquee were bird fanciers of the feathered variety.
The catalogue of shit days coinciding with special events continued through August in a way that almost seemed like Mother Nature was simply taking the piss - Having a do? Here's some torrential rain!
For three days before any event you could have sunbathed naked; the day of the event and thermals under galoshes were the order of the day and one thing we'd worked out by the end of August was it simply didn't just rain here; it was a cross between intensely torrential and full-on monsoon.
Another thing is that weather forecasts are purely advisory... I mean, having been a keen weather bore for years, I am aware that most forecasts are advisory, especially when low pressure is concerned, but up here, I reckon they just approximate the weather and even if it's forecast to be fine there's a rain symbol at 4.00pm (check it out if you don't believe me), probably just to cover their arses at the general unpredictability here. Still etc., etc., etc...
For three weeks September was okay; not the best September I can remember by a long chalk (but better than last year) and definitely one of the least warm ones, but things didn't look bad for the book festival. The day before it all started we were down on Garlieston beach in T-shirts and shorts; it will be the last time that happens before 2018 is my guess and like the day before the Wigtown Show if you had been warned that the following day was going to be shite you would have pooh-poohed the idea (Unless, of course, you've lived here for longer than 2½ months) ...
The Book Festival kicked off on the Friday and so did the South-West Scottish Monsoon Season. Jesus wept, it rained almost non-stop for three days, so bad that by the end of it our back garden was literally under nearly a foot of water - I shit you not and we live on a frigging hill! Even the locals were pretty gobsmacked - "We havnay seen weather like this in September afore," was the common response and we have no real way of corroborating this apart from - we aren't tourists, they can tell us the truth!
I was going to say you could count on one hand the number of nice days during the 10-day festival, but that would have been half of it and the truth was you could almost count the number of nice days on one hand, minus the thumb and your little finger, oh and a bit of your middle finger, the one you hold up to the weather while saying 'Fuck You'...
The festival finished yesterday with the tail end of Hurricane Piss drifting across us. This morning we woke up to sunny skies and 70 mile an hour winds, you'd hope the wind would dry us all out, but all it did was allow heavy showers to rattle through like Lewis Hamilton's arse after a month as a vegan.
During the last week there has been a fair bit of geomagnetic activity, which has meant that in Scotland you can see the aurora borealis, I'm not sure you can see it through thick saturated clouds...
But, we didn't move here for the weather. Oh and winter is coming...
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