Set the weather-o-matic to ‘sunny’

I apologise in advance for writing, again, about the weather (which you could argue I’ve already covered in great depth), but it’s June and I’m still riding my bike wearing warm socks, knee warmers, and long sleeves.

This makes me a little unhappy (in my own mind), which probably translates as monumentally grumpy (in the minds of all those who have to live with/near me).

You might say (and you’d be right) that this underwhelming summer weather gives me the right to be ‘a bit disappointed’ and no more – after all, I live where I live (northern England) and this is the weather we get; mainly grey, punctuated by rain, wind, hail, and the odd glorious but tragically sporadic week long heatwave.

You think ‘tragic’ is an exaggeration?

As I said, it’s June and I’m still riding my bike wearing knee-warmers – make up your own mind.

‘Move house’, I hear you say, ‘or take a holiday in the sun!’

Sound, logical advice, of course, and perhaps I do need to take the emotion out of all this because it is, after all, upsetting me (sob!).

Let’s try approaching things from a cold, hard position of logic, perhaps peppered with a healthy dose of ‘management speak’. Maybe I need to ‘drill down’ into this and focus on:

a) Managing expectations – yes, the weather is pretty poor for the time of year, but I’ve spend close to 40 years living on this weather battered Island and deep down, this ‘knee-warmers in June’ situation is not in the least bit surprising.

b) Benchmarking – the law of averages comes in to play here: we’ve had two hot and sunny summers (2013 and 2014) which now means we must suffer 15 or 20 wet and/or chilly summers to maintain the UK averages.

c) Controlling the controllables – which, as we’ve agreed, means considering a long holiday or moving house to somewhere more suited to cycling in the sunshine; Mallorca, perhaps, or the Cote d’Azur?

d) Blue sky thinking – getting a bit confused now…isn’t this covered by moving to Mallorca or the Cote d’Azur?

e) Poking the bear – as in, ‘it might be time to consider…’

Not relevant at all, and I don’t exactly understand what it means, but definitely my favourite piece of management speak and worth a mention for that reason alone.

f) An exercise in box-ticking – and this is the problem with management speak because, ironically, this is exactly what this list has become.

Perhaps the logical corporate approach isn’t for me after all – maybe I’ve just spent too long ‘running ideas up the flagpole’ and ‘moving forward’.

If I’m honest I’m still waiting for the day when some volcano-dwelling evil genius perfects the ‘Weather-O-Matic’ and then makes it available for general sale to those of us who are not malign and devious multi-millionaires.

When that day comes, mine will be set permanently to ‘sunny – 30 degrees C’.

Until then, at least while I’m still wearing knee-warmers, you may hear me grumble from time to time.