Why are the British so obsessed with the weather ? Worcestershire Beacon.

Steps up from West of England carpark

Today is a bit overcast to say the least. I decided as the views were going to be impeded I would climb the Worcestershire beacon right to the top. I might not be able to see much once I got there, but there would probably be few other walkers out today, and for a moment at least I would be the highest thing in all of Worcestershire. I am only just over 5 foot tall, so it's a nice change to be able to look down on others for a brief moment.

The weather however got me thinking. Why are the British so obsessed by it ?

Approaching the ridge

Tsunami, hurricanes, droughts causing famine and forest fires, monsoons and tornadoes, they just don't happen here. This years winter was one of the longest and most extreme in 100 years, but really it amounted to at most two meters of snow which melted in less than a month. So why does it affect us so ?

With no great extremes foreign travellers think our weather will be monotonous, but a stay of just a few day's on these shores highlight how great the repercussions of minor changes.

Turn left and the summit is in sight

Today is just two degrees cooler that the lovely warm idyllic few days that preceded it. Rather than dense fluffy white clouds floating in skies of blue, the cloud is a uniform thin grey blanket, veiling the sun from sight.

SAD, or Seasonally Affected Disorder is a recognised medical condition which I know causes it's suffers great pain. I am lucky to usually find the beauty in all weather, but today is the rare bland insipid sort of grey that causes my inner emo to resurface and relieve my melancholic teenage angst.

That said I was rather cheered by the poem it has inspired.

Under the weather

Exquisite agony and bliss

The frustrating tender kiss

To be surrounded by beauty

The Beacon

The inscription meaning I am "top" 

On a day so dull.

Without sunshine's blessing,

A hill is just a hill,

The landscape flat and lifeless,

Incline just a challenge to muscle.

The summit becomes the goal.

Its own point limited by pointlessness.

Arriving just to say you arrived,

The plaque

A couple enjoy the natural high

And then descend.

Shrouded in the grey,

Of a dull cloudy day.

Dark moods devour

Fragile spirits tenuous joy.

Unbidden fears encroach

A soul mired by solitude,

Isolated, lonely,

The scream no-one hears.

Just give me sunshine,

A little warmth and light.

Then life will feel worth living

Because and not in spite.

 By Izzy.B.Silver

Today's cloudy view

Rejuvernation therapy, Malvern water treatments.

The path just behind the postbox

Seating area in the little dell

 One of the thing Malvern is famous for is hydrotherapy. The development of a system of water based therapies, designed to aid recuperation from various illnesses including TB and consumption, was most popular during the Victorian era. It is the reason Darwin came to live in Malvern, as he hoped the new therapies would cure his daughter. They didn't, and she died and was buried in Malvern Abbey. It was the loss of her that caused him to reject religion and gave him the strength to stand up to the church of the time, and publish his scientific theory of evolution and natural selection.

The snow now has melted in all but the highest parts of the hill. I went for a walk, starting out from behind the large post box, up past Joyners Meadow, and then past the Narnian gas lamp above Saint James's church.

Whilst walking I saw teenagers running and leaping, throwing themselves into the snow drifts and rolling down hills. They were a little like new born lambs, all newly lengthened limbs, ungainly and jerky. Although many off the hydrotherapy's are now discredited frozen water, in the form of snow, has a miraculously rejuvenating quality. All the cool strutting cynical attitude associated with the teenager wishing to be a proper, "grown-up" suddenly falls away to reveal the child behind the emo facade.

Joyners Meadow

Panoramic shot looking over West Malvern from pathway

View near the Narnian gas lamp by St James well