School holiday heaven

I love the school holidays. I'm not at school nor do I have children, but I love the fact my drive to work is quick, easy and uncluttered by yummy mummies (and daddies) taking their little darlings to school. Heaven forbid that they should have to catch the bus or even use their legs.

But hang on a moment, that's what I used to do. When I went to school in the village, I walked. When I progressed to high school in the town 12 miles away, I caught the bus with everyone else. People who lived in the town walked to school or caught the town service bus. I remember being shocked when I found out that people caught a bus to different parts of town, rather than walking.

Perhaps if children walked now, there wouldn't be the growing obesity problem among our young people that the the do-goers are forever bleating on about. Perhaps if they walked, I would zip through the outskirts of the city in the four minutes it took me today, rather than the 15-20 it can take on a normal day. Perhaps, if they walked, all those yummy mummies' BMWs and 4x4s would stop contributing to climate change. Has anyone else noticed how cold it's been this week when the kids are off school?

Elemental

This morning started with proper blow-you-away weather; gales whistling around rooftops and ripping twigs from trees, leaving a trail like little broken fingers scattered across the road. On the A1, cars bob like corks in a river, drivers' knuckles clenched on the wheel against swift side-swipes that send you off course, while dead leaves scooped up by gusts from I know not where are hurled maliciously at the windscreen. Wizard of Oz weather.

Nor am I a fan of the cold. I currently have three quilts on my bed - a goose down one, a summer weight duvet and a long lusted after patchwork quilt delivered by Santa Claus. However, I recently discovered that trying to brave bed at this time of year without a hot water bottle is a false economy: 10 minutes after huddling down, I am invariably forced out to find one.

As a born and bred Northerner, people from elsewhere seem to find it odd that I don't tolerate the freezing temperatures terribly well. "But you're out feeding horses in all weathers," they say. Yes, but I'm usually wrapped up in sufficient layers to cope with Siberia. They also consider it curious that I am too mean to switch on the central heating. Instead, I tend to use a halogen heater in the room I am in. Currently, there is no heating on in the house and I am wearing a padded coat as I type.

Cold though our winters are, I don't think the mercury falls as low as it did when I was a child. I no longer awake during the night with cramp in my legs or unable to feel my fingers and toes. But I miss the frosted feathers on the inside of winter morning windows and the weeks when flooded fields froze solid enough to skate.

Weather eye

Rainbows bring out a childlike sense of wonder in me; especially double rainbows, and I have seen two of those this week. Because they are so rare, I feel they simply have to be auspicious.

To be rewarded by the rainbow, however, it is necessary to first have the rain. After a global-warmed and dried early spring, there hasn’t been much of that around here recently. The ground has been hard as concrete and scored by deep cracks like the lines on an octogenarian’s face. If that isn’t a demonstration of the aging effects of the sun, I don’t know what is.

The rain has returned with a vengeance. Northumberland already boasts the best skies in Britain: big, bold and expressive. This week, the skies have surpassed themselves in their dramatic, Turner-esque turmoil. I always imagine Wagner would provide the ideal accompaniment to the movement of a stormy sky.

Today’s rain also seems to have stopped my sneezing. Bring it on!