As a small boy I remember waking-up with the glass of water frozen in the glass next to my bed.
It had been cold when I had gone to bed, and I had piled extra blankets and coats on top of my normal bed coverings, plus I had kept my socks on, but I had not expected it to have been that cold.
Looking out of my classroom window during a less than invigorating lesson of history, to joy of seeing the first snowflakes floating like little feathers to land on the green grass, waiting. anticipating as to if the fallen flakes of snow would “stick” or disappear, melting away like the information being taught that in 1509, Henry VIII came onto the Throne of England.
There was the thrill of nudging the boy next to me without the teacher seeing, and indicating the snow falling, and then the buzz emerging in the classroom, until the teacher being so absorbed in his own knowledge of dear old Henry became aware of the snow.
If the snow had “stuck”, (stayed on the ground), there would be the rush to be the first out into the playground to have a snowball fight, totally ill-dressed to be out there, ordinary shoe, no coats, hats or gloves.
How were we to know it was going to snow?
The old “Red sky at night, shepherds delight, red sky in the morning, shepherds warning,” did not apply, the cows were not lying down in the fields, the wind was not blowing from the East.
We just did not know, and the was the joy of not knowing, the excitement of being surprised by the weather. Everyday was new.
Today we get weather forecasting that is said to be correct for say five days. We have weather warnings sometimes given as colours, Yellow, Amber, Red, the most severe being Red. Then we have Early Warnings and just Warnings being the lead time of the event. We have precise temperature predictions down the the actual degree to be expected. Lastly we have the time all this is due to happen, when we can expect the rain to come down or the sun to poke itself out from behind the cloud.
Where has all the fun gone, the excitement, the not knowing?
Last week whilst giving a Society of NLP Master Practitioner course in Istanbul, Turkey, an old friend told me that on Thursday there would be heavy snow which would be continuing for the next three days.
I had not seen real snow for some time as in previous years I had been giving trainings in warming areas of the world, so I became excited, I wanted to know how much, when precisely and for how long would it last.
I went on the internet and accessed many weather forecasting sites only to find that each one differed in what was going to happen, one predicting just rain.
When it came, I was disappointed as I had chosen to take the word of my old friend literally, expecting to see very deep snow, snow drifts, roads closed, I expected the participants to be late in for the morning start, but found it was me to be the last to arrive and I had only a five minute walk from my hotel to the course venue.
Snow in Istanbul 2012
So I sit here, recovering from the only predictable outcome from the cold weather, the flu, waiting to see if the predictions of the weather forecasters will come true, will the predicted snow warrant an Amber Warning, in fact will it snow at all?
I think I would rather not know what is to, or should happen.