High pressure over the country, low pressure in my purse, and a kite named after a lighthouse.
MARGATE, England – Nothing improves a history student’s mood like a long-range forecast that says nothing will happen. According to LBC’s report on the Met Office forecast, high pressure should dominate for the next stretch, rainfall is likely to be below average, and the south will be windier than the north. I read that sentence on the train, twice, and a woman across the aisle asked if I was all right.
Dawn Patrol: The Kite Case For High Pressure
I should explain what high pressure means for a person who flies a kite every day. It means the sky is a calm, dry blue, the air is steady, and the wind, instead of arriving in dramatic bursts, drifts in at a pace you can plan around. It is the weather equivalent of a tutor who emails you the reading list early.
The forecast says temperatures start a little below average and then return to near or slightly above average, and that the south will be windier. That is the whole thing. I am in the south, I own a kite, and the sea is two minutes from the flat I am borrowing this weekend. For about a week the sky is going to be on my side, and I intend to be insufferable about it.
My kite for the weekend is a stunt kite named Beacon, which is an optimistic name for a thing that spends most of its life face down in sand. It has two lines and a temper. The first time I flew it I spent ten minutes making a circle and then a square, and a man on a bench said “is it supposed to do that” in a tone that settled the matter.
Midmorning: The Wind Table
I keep a table in the back of my notebook. It has three columns, labelled “forecast”, “reality” and “excuse”. Last week it read as follows.
- Forecast: light breeze. Reality: a gust that took the hat off a man and delivered it to the sea. Excuse: “the Met Office said light”.
- Forecast: dry. Reality: a drizzle that arrived sideways. Excuse: “dry is a mood”.
- Forecast: mild. Reality: the cold of a church. Excuse: none, I was simply wrong.
All of this has to be set against the news about autumn storms. The Met Office keeps a UK storm centre with warnings and advice, and LBC reports that the next named storm will be called Chloe, but no date has been set. I find this a deeply unsettling piece of information. A named storm with no date is like being told someone is coming to dinner but not when, and also they are a hurricane.
The Second Half of November, As Foretold
The forecast then turns on us. The second half of the month may become more unsettled, with spells of rain and possible strong winds, with northern and western areas most likely to be affected, though the wettest weather could shift toward southern parts at times. I took out the notebook and added a row.
The row says “after the high pressure, find a hill with a view of the west”. That is the whole plan. My tutor, Dr Pemberton-Hale, once told me that history is the study of what people did after the forecast was wrong, and I have been trying to live by it ever since.
Afternoon: Lunch With A Promise
I stopped for chips on the front, eating them on a low wall with the kite lines wound round my wrist, and read a headline on my phone: farmers cannot eat campaign promises, says farm.fm. I have no view on the party in that headline. I have a view on the principle, which is that a promise, like a forecast, is only as good as its wind. You cannot eat one, you cannot fly one, and you cannot build a shed with either.
The sea was flat grey and enormous and utterly uninterested in me. A gull stood near my chips with the patience of a customs officer. I held out my last chip as an act of diplomacy and it was removed so fast I felt I had been robbed by a rumour.
Evening: Live Music, Terrible Dancing
My friend Wendeline’s band, the Gentle Gales, played in the back room of a pub where the stage is a pallet. They play folk songs about weather, which seems an unfair advantage this week. The singer introduced one called “Barometer” with the words “this is about falling pressure”, and the whole room groaned, and then we all sang along.
I danced in a way that had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with how many hours I had spent standing on a beach in a gale. Fenwick stood by the bar and said it looked like I was trying to land something. I told him that was a kite move. He asked which kite. I said “all of them”.
We left at closing and wandered, loudly, to the chip shop, where the man behind the counter looked at the six of us and said “all one order?” We said yes. It was the first honest question anyone had asked all day.
Notes For The Morning
The nice thing about a forecast of nothing happening is that you can plan to the minute. I will be on the sand at seven, kite up by quarter past, and in a state of damp delight by eight. If the wind does what the Met Office hints it will do, I will report back. If it does not, I will blame the Met Office, as is the custom of the country.
I write about the weather for The London Prat the way other people write about a relative who owes them money, and for the sound of how the capital does it there is plenty in London news from the network. Wind language is a fine art too, and this guide to Cockney rhyming slang has more words for a gale than the shipping forecast ever managed. You can also read more of my daily notes at The London Prat.
Beacon is on the table by the window. Its lines are tangled, its tail is full of sand, and it is still, by some definition, ready.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/