It’s back!!…. The prodigal sun has returned to Yorkshire. Kill the fatted calf, ignite the spit roast coals (well, bbq briquettes), replenish your ever depleting vitamin D levels and rejoice!
If weather forecasters are to be believed, the UK has entered a meteorological Indian summer stage….. Or was that the India is due a UK summer? An event where people on the Asia sub-continent are ‘blessed’ with dips in temperature, along with Niagara Falls amounts of precipitation.
Spending the last couple of days in the presence of solar rays, has raised my verve levels to the heights not seen since, via a BBC local weather report, I learned there’s a village near York called Wetwang. A moniker of such magnificence that, akin to Tunbridge Wells in Kent, in my view it should be prefixed by the word Royal.
Circumstances perhaps leading to Yorkshire weatherman Paul Hudson forecasting “It’ll be wall to wall sunshine near York tomorrow….. Meanwhile, up on Pennine high grounds.it’ll reach freezing point overnight…… So in a nutshell, it’ll be dry in Royal Wetwang. And where the heights are wuthering it’ll be nithering.”
Yorkshire’s meteorology is as capricious as the UK’s ever changing coronavirus lockdown edicts. This unpredictable and erratic weather behaviour meaning it’s always prudent to stroll Ilkley Moor wi’ t’at; as opposed to the fellow in our counties unofficial anthem who wandered the heathland bah t’at.
The folk song Ilkley Moor Bah T’at commences with an a query in the Yorkshire dialect to the moor stroller, questioning “Wheear ‘as tha bin sin ah saw thee?” A request I wish had been responded to with “Tha’s bin to Royal Wetwang….. It were crackin flags theyr!…… Tons wamer than woking tha’s nithering moor”. As opposed to the original lyric of “On Ilkla Moor baht’at “
Footnote – For the uninitiated, the above colloquialisms translate as follows:-
“Wheear ‘as tha bin sin ah saw thee?” means “What have you been up to since we last rendezvoused, my good fellow?
“Tha’s bin to Royal Wetwang….. It were crackin flags theyr!…… Tons wamer than woking tha’s nithering moor” translates into English as “Yours truly’s been visiting the village of Royal Wetwang, old chap….. It was rather warm there, don’t you know…… The climes in that locale were significantly warmer than our chilly old moor.”
The silence, as they say, is deafening today. Apart from an unconvincing zephyr gently swaying moribund buddleja leaves, there’s a stillness of breeze and calm on view in chez Strachan’s back garden. This landscape providing my with freeze frame-like canvas.
As a consequence of local farmers spreading slurry/manure, there’s an unpleasant aroma wafting uninvitedly into our airspace. This stark redolence going a small way towards spoiling contentment consequential from the prodigal sun’s return……. On the plus side, it proves I’ve not lost my sense of smell, one of the possible symptoms if contracting COVID.
To close, I attach below the COVID instructions we must adhere to in the Peoples Republic of Yorkshire;-
‘Stay alert. control t’ virus, sev lives‘
