A time when it’s good to be just a little bit disappointed

Country Life with Francis Farragher

Maybe it’s an indication of some serious psychological dysfunction but I’ve always found an excitement in spectacular weather displays. Of course at the end of the day there’s always great relief that no great damage or injury has been caused to anyone, but a great storm, a spectacular display of lightning, or a green countryside that once every decade turns into a polar landscape, are great shows of nature.

Many years ago, I remember making a return trip from Headford Court with an old solicitor in Tuam long gone to his eternal reward, a man by the name of Jim Hession, who told me that night-time thunderstorms were one of the great fascinations of his life.

It was different times then and the journey from Headford to Tuam ended up taking a couple of hours as were both hit by a bad dose of ‘the thirst’ but the conversation about weather did draw me back to childhood days, when during thunderstorms, we would all sit in the kitchen, and break into occasional bursts of Hail Marys in an effort to preserve our bodies, whatever about our souls.

Our father always warned us to keep our legs away from the floor and up on the timber cross lat that helped solidify the front two legs of the chair – his thinking being that this would insulate us in the event of a lightning strike.

Thankfully the chair insulation strategy was never put to the test but such memories probably do capture that mix of fear and tension – but exhilaration too – when nature decides to put on a show.

All this is by way of trying to explain that I felt just a little ‘disappointed’ when last week Rachel didn’t live up to her expectations of being a full blown Atlantic storm. She huffed and she puffed a bit all right, but in the end, this was just an intense Atlantic depression that blew in the usual mix of wind and rain plus the odd violent gust or two.

A lot of people last weekend asked me about the wisdom of schools being closed down all over the country because of what was just in the end a ‘run-of-the-mill’ Atlantic depression, but over recent years, the Met. Office has tended to err on the side of caution when a storm is on the way.

It’s a bit a like a Government warning of a hairshirt Budget, making everyone grimace with fear, only then to unveil a far tamer version, allowing the masses to breathe a huge sigh of relief. In terms of weather forecasting, there’s nothing too much untoward with predicting the worst (just a little annoyance), but there can be an awful lot wrong in forecasting the best, if it doesn’t turn out that way.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.