Bad Weather and a Bad Game

I bet you guys just thought I was being overly sensitive about the weather. We didn't have very good weather last summer. The bad weather continued through the autumn and winter. I remember complaining about it. Spring was a little better and my spirits started to lift. I was hoping that this summer would be good. Sadly my hope dripped away from me as each gray, damp dawn rose. Well it turns out that this has been the wettest August since about 1914! The MET office has confirmed it. We've had about 96 hours of sunshine in total this month. That is it!

I've been wistful about the summers when it was nice here. We used our sunglasses, sunscreen and got to swim in local rivers. I haven't actually used my sunglasses since we've come back from our holiday last month. In fact, I don't think I know where they are now. . . . The only time I think it was half way decent was when we had a visit from Claude and Catherine.

If I had control over the weather, I would have certainly stopped Hurricane Gustav from hitting the beleaguered Caribbean and the relentless path this storm is making toward the southern Gulf States. Louisiana and Alabama have suffered enough! There is also massive flooding in the Indian state of Bihar where it is reported that 1.2 million people have been rendered homeless due to flooding. I'll repeat this, 1.2 million people homeless! If this were my planet to control I'd direct this unwanted and excess water to areas where it hasn't rained enough for life to continue. For instance vast chunks of New South Wales could do with a bit more rain.

The idea of selling Whitelees and using the proceedings to move to Skiathos has been flitting through my head lately. The idea popped into my brain again this afternoon as I sat with George at the Stadium of Light in the rain, watching our noble lads get the stuffing knocked out of them by Manchester City. The final score was Sunderland 0 - Manchester City 3. It was depressing. Loads of fans started to leave before the full time whistle. Shamefully this included George and myself. It was said on the radio that 10 minutes before the end of the game the swarms of the 39,000 fans starting to make their way home made the stadium looked as though there had been a bomb scare.

We won't up stakes and move to a warmer climate. Even though the Lonely Planet book of The Greek Islands states that Skiathos enjoys 300 days of sunshine a year, we'll be staying put. It wouldn't be practical to move at this point in our lives, but some days . . . . .

We won't be throwing out our season tickets for Sunderland either, but I hope that the team's performance picks up. If the lads keep playing (or not playing) like they did today, we'll be looking at relegation again.

The thing that we continue to have is hope. We hope that next summer there will only be an ordinary amount of rain and Sunderland will be doing so well that there will be talk of championships, trophies and games in Europe rather than relegation battles.