Jonathan Dodd‘s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
Oh dear! Everyone’s going on holiday and I’ve already been! I know it’s fair, but it doesn’t feel like it. I hope everyone has as wonderful a holiday as we had, and I don’t begrudge you going away at all. Honest.
It’s always quite difficult to work during August. Your mind’s never quite capable of concentrating because of the sunny weather and the warmth, lulling my body into insisting on a siesta in the afternoon. Sadly, my employers show no signs of providing suitable places for me to snooze and would probably not understand if I suggested such an idea. I dread afternoon meetings, which become a huge struggle to stay awake.
Then there’s the difficulty of having serious meetings anyway, because so many people are away and decisions feel like too much hard work, and besides, everyone’s thinking about their holiday next week or moaning about having to come back to work. And their brains, like mine, are sluggish. At least the hay fever season seems to be over at last.
Unexpected convoys of MPVs
Driving to work is different in August too. There’s no school traffic, never too difficult on the Island anyway, but awful in Southsea. There are unexpected convoys of MPVs with big plastic boxes on the roof or filled bike racks on the back, slowing me down at intersections and not used to the rules the locals go by for hills and roundabouts. At least our visitors unfailingly drive slowly and carefully.
It seems to me that there are more of them about this year. Could it be that the hot weather and maybe a small increase in the sense of well-being reported by the Office for National Statistics might have encouraged people to book up somewhere and get themselves some ferry tickets? If true, that would be a good sign for the Island economy as well as the other island.
Turning into amphibians
I’ve also noticed that Islanders in general look healthier this summer. It might be because the weather. Last year everyone looked soggy and pasty, from lack of sunshine and constant rainfall, like we were all turning into amphibians. This year I see brown faces and sun-bleached hair everywhere, and everyone seems relaxed and somehow happier.
If this doesn’t apply to you I apologise. I know it must be annoying to people who burn in the sun to hear people banging on about how lovely it all is, just as I get fed up with people extolling the lovely spring when my sinuses are exploding. I have a hard time when the humidity’s up, especially at work. I haven’t ever got into the habit of carrying a spare shirt about but maybe I should.
Cabri Olé!
I actually love warm weather and miss it terribly when it goes away. I do wish that we had more good weather, and that our bad weather wasn’t so relentlessly miserable. Countries that have consistent weather are less interesting (that’s our excuse), but they seem more able to deal with changes when they come.
I once read that car manufacturers sell 15 times more convertibles in the UK than in hot countries. The reason? In Spain you want to jump from your air-conditioned office into your air-conditioned car and close all the doors, because it’s always hot and sunny. That’s nothing special to them. When we get hot weather we rip most of our clothes off and catch as much as we can because it’s precious.
We rather like being unprepared
I do think we miss out, because we’re never prepared. We should be canny enough nowadays to have air-conditioning that works properly (I’ve never worked in an office where this was the case) and houses that are well-insulated, and airports with the proper machinery to deal with snow, and trains that aren’t cancelled by leaves on the track.
I think we rather like being unprepared, and we never seem to tire of that delicious sense of surprise whenever our weather freezes us or soaks us or causes droughts and floods (often in the same year). It’s the face of adversity we love, and us being brave and soldiering on regardless.
In the meantime, I’m going to …
Unless I’m trapped at work, of course.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
Image: Sun Dazed under CC BY 2.0
Image: Jeff Moser under CC BY 2.0
Image: Furry Scaley under CC BY 2.0
Image: Efes under CC BY 2.0
Image: Nigel Cox under CC BY 2.0
Image: Nick Wallen under CC BY 2.0
