Dear Mother Nature

Dear Mother Nature,

I went for a walk at lunchtime today, as I do on every other working day. I have three routes; one is 1.5 miles, the second is 1.8 miles and, for days when I am feeling particularly stressed and/or energetic, the third is 2.1 miles.

When I left the office, the sun was shining and, although it was chilly, I was content and comfortable. I opted for the 1.8 mile walk and, having pressed reset on my pedometer, I set off, with a high tempo song pounding on my iPod to help me keep a brisk pace.

However, as I approached the 0.9 mile point, I suddenly remembered two things that I had forgotten at the start of my walk.

The first thing was that British weather is totally unpredictable.

The second, and most important thing, was that I had left my umbrella in the car.

What prompted this sudden total recall?

It suddenly started pissing down with rain. There was no warning whatsoever; it was like you had decided to turn on the shower with maximum water pressure.

And what song was playing on my iPod when this deluge occurred?

November Rain by Guns’n’Roses:




Is this your idea of a joke? You wait until exactly half way through my walk, when I am at the furthest point from the shelter of the office and decide to drench me in rainwater with no shelter but the leafless trees at the side of the pavement. The fact that November Rain was on must have been the icing on the cake.

When I finally got back to the office, having navigated my way back through steamed up and drenched spectacles, I looked like a drowned rat.

My work colleagues were merciless. I spent the entire afternoon in a state of damp despondency trying to ignore water related puns from amused colleagues.

And my hair, which is a pain at the best of times, finally dried in a style that can best be described as “disturbing to children”.

Why, Mother Nature? Why?

I’d like to ask for a few favours regarding the weather in Britain. Have you got a pen?

(1) Instead of dumping the entire contents of the Atlantic Ocean onto the UK, Manchester in particular, can you please send it to America instead?

(2) Yes, I know we need rain to survive but if it must rain, can you please make sure that it happens between the hours of midnight and 6am, when I am safely tucked up in my warm bed?

(3) British weather is unpredictable at best – even in the summer when it is supposed to be warm. Most summers, we have mostly bad cold weather, occasionally interspersed with a few good sunny days. I like those sunny days. During summer, can you please make sure that we have warm sunny days (25 °C will do – I’m not fussy).

(4) I hate snow. I used to love it as a kid but now it is horrible and also dangerous. The whole country grinds to a halt, particularly when temperatures drop so low that it freezes. Can you please take all the snow to the North Pole where it belongs?

(5) And talking of cold weather, can you please arrange for us to have mild winters? I’m looking for temperatures of 15 °C minimum.

(6) I realise that I am sounding a little selfish here so, on behalf of the rest of the world, can you stop creating hurricanes, typhoons and monsoons? I am sure the people of the world can survive with standard rainstorms with a little bit of wind rather than the monstrosities that rampage around the world – including those hurricanes that find their way over to the UK and cause lots of damage and general trauma.

Is it too much to ask?

Your name suggests that you are a mother and I am sure that a good kind mother would not want to play such a nasty prank on one of her children – i.e. me.

There are lots of us in the world and I am sure that we all have similar complaints. There’s a guy called Santa who actually takes requests at Christmas.

Can’t you do the same?

I’m sure you chuckled as I dragged my drenched and bedraggled form back to the office for hours of ridicule (I might have done the same had it happened to somebody else) – but this is not the first time it has happened. Even when I have had the foresight to take my brolly, you have somehow conjured up 100mph winds to render it useless and make me even more saturated.

I hope you listen to me – I am sure you are a nice person really.

Yours hopefully,

Plastic Mancunian.

P.S. An alternative to dumping the rain on the UK might be to dump it on France – apart from when I am there on holiday of course.