- St Swithun's day if thou dost rain
- For forty days it will remain
- St Swithun's day if thou be fair
- For forty days 'twill rain na mair
He may have been a 10th Century Bishop, misquoted by generations of 'scholars', but at least it's good to see one of them attribute a rubbish Scots accent to him, just to make his big moment scan. And only in Britain could we have a patron saint of 'weather lore', along with his contemporary; St Cuthbert; Patron Saint of Comfortable Shoes, St Wesley, Patron Saint of a Good Sit-Down and Saint Franklyn, the Patron Saint of Orderly Queuing. We don't care, any scrap of half-baked pagan theology, re-branded and re-cycled to the masses; if it says blue-skies ahead, count me in, that's good enough; where do I buy a flag and badge, a headscarf or a briar whipping-stick? He's my saint now.
- And only three drops of rain so far today, I know there's three and a half hours left, but we can make it.
With Festivals coming up (WOMAD, BigChill), more stalls and orders, we need sunshine, by the KiloPascal, and by gods, or his unwitting misrepresented contemporary figurehead, Swithun, we're going to get it . . . !
Definitions of sunshine on the Web:
sunlight: the rays of the sun; "the shingles were weathered by the sun and wind" fair weather: moderate weather; suitable for outdoor activities cheerfulness: the quality of being cheerful and dispelling gloom; "flowers added a note of cheerfulness to the drab room"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
JP
