Today is notable on two counts. Firstly, it is the meteorological start of Autumn. Now there’s a thought to send curdling blood through your quaking veins. Except it’s surely completely meaningless. What it does mean is that somebody in high office has decided that the year should be conveniently divided into four equal portions, to be known as Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. People in that office who call themselves meteorologists have been putting it about on our transistors and tv screens this week that what we are currently experiencing is “anticyclonic gloom”. Some ignorant person at High Command has obviously been briefing that, as the current grey cloud cover is gloomy, it must be anticyclonic gloom (AG). Actually what we have is a mass of cloud that is being dragged down from Scandinavia by wind that is circulating around a high pressure system centred to the north of Britain and keeping the temperature down and the atmosphere pretty clear. That’s exactly the opposite of what AG is. Normally in summer an anticyclone produces calm, hot and sunny weather. When that lasts for more than a few days, the high pressure system, often allied with a temperature inversion, causes a build up of pollutants and dirty air that can reduce visibility quite considerably, hence Anticyclonic Gloom. It’s yet another example and there are many, of ignorant people putting forward ideas or language that are then perpetuated by other ignorant folk until it becomes “fact”.
Secondly, on this day fifty two years ago Mrs T took her first breath. Thankfully, her lungs are still working well, but her day has been dedicated to the youthful newbies and their parents, experiencing their first day at The College. Suddenly, from the relaxing calm of school holidays, it’s been a day of constant presenting and talking; exhausting. We did manage a candlelit supper, prepared with love and care by yours truly, but the call of early slumber was greater than the need for a dollop of baked Alaska. Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer are already feeling like a distant memory. Perhaps those meteorologists are right after all!
Meanwhile, I have been wallowing in a bath of self-pity, watching my former colleagues on the golf tour enjoying a spectacular week in Crans Montana in Switzerland. There are many stunningly beautiful places on this planet and I have been most fortunate to visit quite a few over the years, but the incomparable high alps of the Rhöne Valley, snow-capped and sun-kissed, always rated as close to the summit of perfection in my peripatetic life. Watching it at home on the high definition big screen is small compensation.
Meanwhile, Autumn can wait for the equinox on 22nd September.
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