CLIMATE change weather, as seen on television, is truly frightening.
Wildfires frighten the living daylights from me, while floods unnerve and distress my whole being.
Nightly, world news stories show scenes of drought, flooding, wildfires, and hailstones as large as golf balls. The list of disasters seems to grow and grow.
Wildfires in Australia earlier this year (during our winter) accounted for the release of 75 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere, more than all that emitted by Germany in an entire year.
Add to that the carbon from wildfires in California, Portugal, Greece, and Turkey to name but a few others. No wonder the world is warming dangerously.
Here in Ireland, we thankfully seem to escape major catastrophes, but flooding and high tides are no strangers, neither damaging winds which are certainly on the increase.
Wind I dislike intensely, but it affects many people in strange ways.
When it has been blowing strongly, notice how people become quieter, subdued, even distracted.
In my case, I feel withdrawn and retiring, not up to my usual witticism and bon mot.
There are legends of how peculiar winds can drive people mad; the roots of madness being disconnection.
Wind alienates us, it disrupts our co-ordination and confuses clear thinking.
We then turn in on ourselves so that our reason is not to be blown away, leaving us howling like lost souls on a dark night.
Wind has a multiplicity of names.
Many will have heard of the gentle Western Zephyr that sometimes causes us to look over our shoulders in the late afternoon during summer, but few know that the rainy, icy, easterly winds we experience in spring are named Eurus.
Then there’s the boisterous and bullying Typhoeus which can blow from any direction just like the temperamental Mediterranean Mistral.
Its arrival is usually heralded by a sudden fall on the barometer, and a short time later the air starts to move with great velocity.
Strangely, it always arrives during the hours of darkness.
The noise can be frightening as it bullies all before it. For twenty minutes and more everything will be tossed in a wild frenzy and then it disappears. Torrential rain usually follows.
Boreas is yet another which vents its anger as a destructive blast direct from the far north; the very embodiment of a wintry spirit which forces itself in among the trees and shrubs shaking and throttling almost to the point of collapse.
So, beware the wind and if you live in high areas plan to have as much shelter as possible to filter its powerful forces.
You'll save yourself sleepless hours and turn comfortably in your bed.
