Astraphobe

Is it a good or bad thing that weather forecasting remains a matter of probabilities rather than nailed-on certainty? I follow both the BBC’s daily predictions and the Met Office. They frequently disagree both about temperature and the likelihood of precipitation, at least until it’s too late. The Met allows access to radar which shows anticipated rainfall – but even then what’s forecast frequently fails to materialise, despite the lurid colours of the graphics. Major ‘rain events’ or ‘wind events’ tend to be accurately predicted, as are temperature spikes (there’ll be one this week coming), but year on year the English weather still retains its renowned quality of enigma.

And so it is this week. Each day somewhere will get a sousing and somewhere will stay dry. I’m watching the skies as I set out from Ketton. They’re nicely blued, but the atmosphere’s humid and sweaty. I pick my way through the houses, and find a field path which joins the rising track out of the village towards Empingham. I know this old road. It forms part of both the Macmillan Way (hello, long-neglected friend!) and the Hereward Way. It bisects the two halves of the massive quarries which supply the Ketton cement works (and provide a steady supply of sandstone for building, I presume). To both sides the land is deeply scoured and scarred, with impressive cliffs on some edges, and broad roadways where the heavy duty earthmovers can pass as they trundle their loads back to base camp for breaking and powdering. The site provides a fifth of the UK’s cement needs, but is also a wildlife haven, and a ready source of fossils for the intrepid trespasser. At one point on the track a bridge has been built over the chasm passageway from one side of the workings to the other. It provides a fine vantage point. Today there seems relatively little activity. There are no detonations. Few vehicles manouevre round the 115 hectare site. I suppose some of the staff may have been furloughed, though in such a vast quarry that seems counterintuitive. The village website tells me that amongst the fauna to be seen are marbled white, and grizzled and dingy skippers. I think to myself that I’ve met a few grizzled and dingy skippers in my lifetime, though these particular ones are butterflies.

After a while I climb gently to reach the quarry edge and from there a succession of field paths leads me to the lane which drops to Empingham close on the eastern extremity of Rutland Water, sometimes early in its existence referred to as ‘Empingham Reservoir’. On the way I pass a solitary escapee dog, and wonder for a moment whether it will lope across to join me as I walk (this has happened to me once before, when a lost pooch adopted me to the point I thought I’d have to take it home with me or drop it off at a cop shop). But this hound bounds across the fields, relishing its own freedom to excess and the crops’ detriment. My path is fringed with ground convolvulus, pretty in pink and white, the colour scheme picked up in the dog roses of the hedge line. This year they seem to be flowering in much greater profusion than normal.

As I come to the village the cloud is thickening, and the flies are more pesky. There’s a bit of Covid people confusion around ‘Barbara’s Stores’; cyclists and vans; people leaning against the closed gate of St. Peter’s church. I read the notices and adverts in the shop window.  A lot of them seem to be for pest control: moles, rodents, wasps. It could give one a skewed impression of life in Empingham. The general low-key hubbub continues. The cyclist leaning against the church gate is resolutely eating his sandwich, and on this occasion I don’t feel inclined to explain why I want to move him. I’m already imagining the conversation:

Me:  Excuse me, do you think I could just squeeze past?

Lycrabod: (not budging an inch, chomping on his cheese and pickle) It’s closed, mate. Didn’t you know?

Me:  Well, yes, actually. But I’d like to go in…

Lycrabod: I don’t think you’re allowed, fella. They’re shut, in’it?

Me: The church. Not the churchyard…

Lycrabod: You sure about that?

Me: I’m on a pilgrimage…

Lycrabod: You what? Oh! Right…I  went to Old Trafford once to see United…

I’d rather be a goalkeeper in the house of the Lord. Maybe it’s the humidity, but today I just don’t have the energy to crypto-evangelise. I retire to the bench on Empingham’s green and have a sandwich of my own. Cheese and corned beef, since you ask. I do my best to pray for the church and village, but my head’s a bit foggy and I don’t make a good fist of it. I look at my mobile and see that the probability of a storm has massively increased. According to the BBC there could be thunder and lightning at any moment. The Met confirms this. There’s a lot of red and yellow among the blue blobs on the radar. The sky over Empingham looks OK-ish, but my planned onward walk round the reservoir to Normanton seems a bad bet. The safer thing is a rapid retreat the way I’ve come, back to Ketton.

I do it. At pace. On the way the clouds lower for a while. The breeze comes and goes. But there’s no rending of the heavens, no life-threatening forks of electricity. On the drive back to Northampton about four spots of rain hit the fly-encrusted windscreen. While it was parked in Ketton, a crow, nay a likely gang of terrorist crows, have crapped all over the Audi. A good downpour would come in handy.

I think conservatism is a wise policy when it comes to electrical storms, and I recommend it to any readers. Better inconvenienced than dead.

Isobars on the chart:  10 km. 2.7 hrs. 23 deg. Humid and partly sunny. 3 stiles, 4 gates, 1 bridge (x 2 there and back). Butterflies (possibly a grizzled and dingy skipper included, for all I know…)

This is the day of the year on which the Church of England commemorates Richard of Chichester, who seems n.b. to have been a wise cleric and a nimble politician. Here’s his prayer, which you may remember from school, if you’re of a certain age:

Thanks be to you, our Lord Jesus Christ,
For all the benefits which you have given us;
For all the pains and insults which you have borne for us.
Most merciful Redeemer,
Friend and Brother,
May we know you more clearly,
Love you more dearly,
And follow you more nearly,
Day by day.
Amen.