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6.


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GRUMPY GIT I have just committed the s c h o o l b o y e r r o r o f pegging the washing out in my old trainers. I am now a stone heavier due to the amount of rainwater that has seeped forth from the ground and entered said footwear. Whilst out there I saw my newly planted tree uprooted from its new resting place by an extreme westerly two nights ago. My front lawn is eighteen inches deep in lush green grass, the lawnmower having been confined to barracks for fear it would become entrenched in the underlying sludge. The children are hyperactive. The living room has been turned into a skate park, the kitchen table home to an improvised tent. The television tunes itself to Disney channels for sixteen hours per day as the children are banned from setting foot outside the front door for fear they might drown on the drive. This is summer in Lancashire. The third damp squib in a row, where July and August have been non-entities, the nice weather of May and early June being a distant memory. Whilst high pressure and oppressive temperatures have been the order of the day on the Continent and even down the Eastern side of the UK, we have suffered with wave after wave of Atlantic depressions featuring heavy downpours and little or no sun. It is somewhat surreal to compare the parched lawns and fields of South East England with the paddy fields of Padiham. Yet of course, the North West is the only region currently under a hosepipe ban. Actually even if we wanted to we couldn’t get to our hosepipe as it currently lies at the bottom of a lake that used to be our side garden. A few weeks ago I heard a lady from United Utilities who with a perfectly straight face admitted they were struggling to plug leaks in the region because it was too wet. Even more unbelievable was the report from Cumbria County Council into the winter floods in the county. After six months of investigation and at a total cost of over three million pounds, the authors concluded a lot of rain had fallen in a short period of time. Next time I’ve offered to tell them the same but only charge them two million. I await their call. No. The only answer is to pack your suitcase and clear off abroad. I know for many of us that is not financially viable in the current climate. Whilst our friends come back from their holidays deeply tanned, we try to match that with our easily-gained rust! This financial strain is however compounded by the airlines, travel companies, and hotel groups who dramatically inflate prices during the school holidays. What might have been an affordable holiday becomes a pipe-dream for many families. Enormous pressure is exerted by the education sector to stop parents looking for bargains outside the traditional six weeks. Suggestions of dereliction of parental responsibility and damage to our children’s development lurk just under the surface of communications sent from school. If you are fortunate enough to be able to afford and book a holiday abroad, your troubles are not quite over yet. Again we have the threat from personnel at airports and certain airlines to withdraw their labour. How dare the airports authorities offer a meagre one per cent pay increase to its employees? Despite the fact that passenger numbers are down, revenue is down, and all over the country people in other sectors are facing the real threat of redundancy, these deluded union chiefs look to urge members to walk out. Of course there being no intention to disrupt the public the strikes will be organised for the middle of the night on Sundays won’t they? Like hell. Wait for summer weekends and Bank Holidays and see just how many people we can inconvenience. My advice is to book your flights from Liverpool John Lennon Airport. You can be certain that if airport staff walks out across England and Scotland, then the Scousers will angrily return to work just to be awkward. I’d love to holiday in an English coastal resort if I could be guaranteed two things. The first is the weather. The second is a complete of absence of chavs with their ridiculous tattoos, foul mouths, corned beef legs, ripples of visible abdominal flesh, and the obligatory 11am can of lager. Clearly I will always be disappointed on both counts. But I can’t go abroad because the voracious travel companies will milk me dry before I get there or I will spend the entire fourteen days crashed out on a departure lounge bench. No, I have decided to opt for reverse hibernation. I intend to go to bed in late April and only get up at the end of September. That way I can avoid the perennial disappointment of the British summer with the added bonus of avoiding the most useless and destructive animal known to man, the wasp. So like every good squirrel I have made provision for my nuts, made a little nest under the duvet, and made a nice cup of Horlicks. When I wake up Manchester City will have spent another hundred million. The Conservative ministers will all be carrying scissors to make their cuts easier. Tesco will be promoting Christmas puddings. And of course it will still be bloody well raining. Goodnight.


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