What a difference a day makes. On Saturday, the day of our club fitting out supper, a full gale was raging, rain was stair-rodding out of the sky, and we were all wondering why we had gone to the trouble of getting afloat so early. It looked like yet another wash-out weekend.
Then, after an excellent party, we changed the clocks before turning in, amid much hollow laughter about “British summer time.” However, when we woke up on Sunday morning, the joke was on us. The weather had cleared through even more dramatically than forecast. The wind had dropped right away. The sun was trying to come out. It really was a complete change of season.
Having come in like a lion, March duly went out like a lamb. And we had a most enjoyable morning on the water celebrating the fact. We went out again yesterday afternoon with some racing friends, making their first outing of the season, to check that everything was in working order before the first race of the season this coming weekend.
The sun was by now shining from a perfectly blue sky. If we'd had winter on Saturday and spring on Sunday, it was summer on Monday. Of course, there's no guarantee it will stick. Just the opposite. The Met Office is already promising more wet and windy and a return to wintry temperatures by this coming Saturday. But isn't that the beauty of British weather?
Can't say I haven't enjoyed it, when we've holidayed in more reliable climates. But my other half is adamant: “I'd hate to live somewhere where you could guarantee it being hot and sunny, day after day,” he says. It would be boring, he thinks, and more importantly, he adds, it's because sunny days like yesterday are a relatively rare treat that we all appreciate them so much. We certainly don't take them for granted.
Back at the fitting out supper, we met another friend, back home briefly after taking his boat out to the Caribbean on last year's unexpectedly stormy and squally ARC.
“How was the Atlantic?” I asked him.
“Well,” he replied, “I always say the difference between an adventure and an ordeal is a state of mind!”
I've decided to adopt that as my motto for this season. By the law of averages, I keep telling myself, it can't be as consistently wet and windy in 2008 as it was in 2007. But what if it is? We sailed 3,000 miles in the North Sea and Channel last year, an awful lot of it in weather we wouldn't have chosen, and almost all of it turned out to be enjoyable adventure, not miserable ordeal.
This year I'd like my adventures warmer and drier, please. And if they are, I promise not to complain about being too hot, too sunburned etc. Perhaps him indoors is right, and you need to have the wet and windy weather to properly appreciate that “champagne sailing” when you get it.
