Whether the weather...

Whether the weather be fine,
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold,
Or whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not!

                                    Traditional children's rhyme 

Well, it's been a strange couple of weeks weather-wise round here. Last week we had torrential rain and flooding, on Monday the snow arrived briefly, then it got warmer again.

And then on Thursday, Hurricane Bawbag hit - with a vengeance! Not only did it cause a weather storm, it's also creating an academic/geek storm over on Wikipedia as they try to decide whether to use the commonly known name or the official one for the Wiki entry. Go on, I challenge you - without looking it up - what's the official name?

As a slight digression, the whole naming of storms thing is quite interesting. Until relatively recently, storms were always given female names but that changed in 1979 - to go along with the times, apparently?? - since when names have alternated between male and female. And yes, before you ask, there has been a Hurricane Rebecca!! It does beg the question of why on earth name storms in the first place though?

Anyway, to get back to the point - in amongst all the humour, there is a serious side to this weather. We got off pretty lightly really. It could have been so much worse. As far as I know there have been no serious incidents but there are still thousands of households without power and struggling to cope in our now wintry temperatures.

But for all their current troubles, those families are still the lucky ones really. Spare a thought (again) for those without homes this winter, and maybe make one of your Christmas presents a donation to agencies that help at this happiest time of the year?