Scanlan15 Winter is coming? Sure it never left MARCH FOOL WITH BBQ HOPES
YES WE CANS: Leo is off and Simon is in but will it reduce the cost to me of a tin of beer?
I STARED at the barbeque. We had been here before. March. Cold. Hail. Sleet. Wind. The barbeque stared back at me.
It begins every year when I feel the first brush of warmth from the spring sun on my back. It travels to my brain and triggers me to think: “That’s it - winter’s over.”
But winter’s not over. Winter is never over in Ireland.
Yet still, every March, I hang my wistful hopes of not being cold outdoors on my barbeque. And my barbeque thinks I should know better by now.
Two years ago, I defiantly set up a parasol in February too many evenings of darkness at 4pm had pushed me to the extremes of rebelliousness.
I stood under the parasol in the cold for several minutes, then went indoors - leaving the parasol up in the ultimate act of defiance.
Stood
Next day, the parasol was gone, nowhere to be seen. It left me overnight - perhaps with assistance from moderate northerly winds from Malin Head.
Harsh lessons were learned: A: Parasols have no business in Ireland. B: Putting up a parasol in February won’t induce anything other than welfare checks.
Yet this week, lessons were unlearned. I stood at the door of my small shed and looked at the place where a parasol used to be and a barbeque sleeps in winter.
Barbeques - especially my very basic one - aren’t sentient beings.
But it feels like it knows more about the weather than I do.
My brain told me: “I should get the barbeque out.”
Scream
The barbeque looked like it was trying to stifle a scream. Then the first hailstone that popped off the top of my head gave the situation some context.
It was time to go back indoors, for at least another eight weeks. The clocks are changing but Ireland’s weather has been consistent... So much so that you could play a Met Eireann drinking game. Every time they say “uncertainty” take a drink. When they say “unsettled” take two - but perhaps book the next day off work. Always enjoy Met Eireann responsibly and don’t drink when they say “widespread rain” or “showers increasingly heavy spreading nationwide from the west”.
I’ve accepted, this year, that the weather’s always crap and we might as well get used to it. The barbeque is staying where it is, not defiantly but indefinitely.
And still... I think writing a column complaining about weather might make it better. It won’t. Meanwhile, don’t let the sunshine fool you.