December 1997

Mild and windy, big shower clouds.

December 9th. Mild and windy again, quite nice actually.

December 10th. Rather variable weather; dark and drizzly in the morning, bright and clear at lunchtime, cloudy again in the evening.

'Mild, wet, and changeable' [...]

December 16th. Very cold, very dark - leaden clouds like in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - and same time of year. In fact extraordinarily dark. Snow at lunchtime (small flakes) came to nothing. Fiendishly cold on the way home. Barometer was 1028 mb this morning, 1008 mb now. Might explain that powerful East wind!

December 17th. Weather as cold and dark as yesterday with snow in the morning.

'Quite dull in the east and north..'

December 19th. Rained again in the morning, got wet.

December 21st. Dismal grey afternoon, completely transformed by the prospect of Christmas.

'..the week before Christmas was the dullest of the year.'

December 24th. Cycled home through vast winds and pouring rain. Cycled to the pub dead against the wind, as slow as walking. Left at 1am, cycled back with the wind in 6 minutes.

'The Christmas Eve Storm was probably the worst since December 1993, possibly since the 1990 Burns Day Storm... Heavy rain'