{"id":291,"date":"2008-08-25T16:17:34","date_gmt":"2008-08-25T23:17:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/?p=291"},"modified":"2008-10-30T16:06:16","modified_gmt":"2008-10-30T16:06:16","slug":"weatherwatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/08\/25\/weatherwatch\/","title":{"rendered":"DIARY OF SIR JOHN WITTEWRONGE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bank Holiday Monday and I should be climbing <a title=\"Helvellyn information\" href=\"http:\/\/www.helvellyn.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Helvellyn<\/a> along with the hordes of holidaymakers and ramblers who are in the region to make the ascent of this popular Lakeland mountain. Instead I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m camped out in a tea house in Keswick trying to stay dry, with hordes of holidaymakers and ramblers!<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Whilst tucking into a steak pie and cursing the English summer that never was, I came across today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<span> <\/span>Weatherwatch in <a title=\"The Guardian\" href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian<\/a>. It points out that<span> <\/span>the holiday month of August has always been prone to extremes, with high rainfall chief among them and quotes from the weather diary of <a title=\"Observations of Weather by Sir john Wittewronge\" href=\"http:\/\/www.antiqbook.co.uk\/boox\/wingha\/007643.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Sir John Wittewronge<\/a> of Rothamsted, Hertfordshire. In his August 1685 records Sir John notes that his apricots and peaches by reason of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unseasonable wett weather ripened very ill\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and a good number of the peaches \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rotted and fel off.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The year \u00e2\u20ac\u0153was a long and wett unreasonable harvest as I ever remember.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d His entry for today, August 25, reads: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A cloudy day with frequent showers of rain, in the evening thunder and lightening and rain to some purpose from five to past seven continually and after by intervals til 9.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Thinking about it, the unpredictability of the British climate has informed much of the character of English art: stormy northern skies conjured an entirely different atmosphere and type of landscape than the bright, blue clarity of southern Europe. The moisture which steams out of Turner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s canvases as well, or that makes Constable\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so uncannily clear and fresh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I&#8217;ll leave you with this quote from Charles II, who had been brought up in France, but regarded the English climate as more attractive, saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153he lik\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6that Country best, which might be enjoy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d the most Hours of the Day, and the most Days in the Year, which he was sure to be done in England more than in any country whatsoever.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bank Holiday Monday and I should be climbing Helvellyn along with the hordes of holidaymakers and ramblers who are in the region to make the ascent of this popular Lakeland mountain. Instead I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m camped out in a tea house in Keswick trying to stay dry, with hordes of holidaymakers and ramblers! Whilst tucking into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":653,"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions\/653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}