Brass Monkeys

When the weather's like this I really feel for the guy at the bus stop.

It's bad enough opening the door to get the milk, or making a mad dash between front door and car door. But having to get out there and wait for a Ribble or a Traccy or one of SYPTE's finest just fills me with genuine shivers.

But every day, at some godforsaken hour there are some of you who brave the freezing drizzle at the local stop. They should give you a medal.

I used to live in one of those postindustrial pit villages and the place that you caught the bus was strategically placed so that the howling winds from the North Pole blasted right down via Siberia, the North Sea, the River Humber the canal bank and right into my face. The bus, naturally was always late, especially for me.

It toughens you up, that bus routine.

You can deal with anything after that.

Because in the cold, if you're moving about, you can adjust to the crap weather. But stood standing at the kerb side ices your soul!

I know its a cliche that us Brits only talk about the weather, but I just don't get how depressing the weather can get sometimes.

When it gets bitter cold like this the country should get coated in a picturesque blanket of pristine white snow, with kids sledding down the coal tips, and skating on the canals like a black and white movie.

It should be like a Christmas Gap advert with lots of happy grinning people having snowball fights.

But instead we get grey stuff that turns to mush, then ices up, turning a boring old pavement into something out a bad horror movie. And the sky just goes into Permagrey and the sun disappears for weeks.

Days stay dark all day and you silently curse the grinning weather fellers who serve up this crap, shrugging their shoulders like they've nowt to do with it. "Its another bitterly cold day out there..." No shit, Sherlock!

Even our cat - an outdoor freak up there with Shackleton and Scott and Amundson - takes one look out the door and does a U-ie back to the warmest part of the house.

When it's like this I just don't want to go out. At all.

This is fug up time. Lock the door. Kettle on. Heater up full blast and bugger the bills.

And don't go out until April.

-B