An Exile Returns To Intemperate Weather

Walking around in the sinus-battering wind and drizzle I realise how utterly dismal the Scottish weather can be. That’s not to say that life down south was lived basking in sunshine and light breezes – it wasn’t, the climate’s typically dreary down there too. It’s just that there’s a unique quality to weather up here. When it’s cold its bloody cold; when it rains, its cold rain; when it’s dark, its pitch black. And the wind? Living in this micro-climate on the Firth of Forth is like living in a wind tunnel with behavioural problems. It whirls and skirls like a highland reel. It stops you in your tracks and blows you off your feet. It whooshes in four directions at once. It buffets your windows to breaking-point. You arrive home distressed, dishevelled and drenched muttering “why did I want to come back to this?”

I am reminded of my childhood in East Kilbride, one of the most exposed places in Britain, possibly on earth, outside of Siberia, surrounded as it is by moors and flatlands. My father dubbed a particular part of Princes Square, the central shopping precinct, as ‘Cochrane’s Corner’ after the self-service grocer shop that was situated there (I once stole a bottle of Soda Water and a Napoleon Solo magazine from there, I can still feel the thrill 40-odd years on). On a windy day (and those were plenty) you turned around this corner and were literally stopped in your tracks by the gusts of wind. If you had a bomber jacket on you could stretch it out bat-style like a parachute and fly away toward Glasgow.