St Swithin has always been one of those saints who feels less like a figure from a dusty manuscript and more like a quiet companion who walks beside us through the British summer. His day arrives every fifteenth of July, slipping into the calendar with a kind of gentle authority, and suddenly the weather feels as though it has stepped into an old story. The legend is simple, memorable and wonderfully dramatic. Whatever the sky chooses today it will keep choosing for forty days more.

The old rhyme still carries its charm:

St Swithin’s day, if thou dost rain,

For forty days it will remain.

St Swithin’s day, if thou be fair,

For forty days ’twill rain nae mair.

A neat little prophecy wrapped in four lines. A reminder that our ancestors watched the clouds with the same mixture of hope and dread that we do.

And today the sun is not merely fair. It is triumphant. It is hot, so very very hot. The kind of heat that makes the air wobble above the roads and the kind of heat that makes every Welsh hillside look as though it is glowing from within. You step outside and the world feels like a kiln. You step back inside and the world feels like a sauna. Even the shade seems to have given up and joined the sun in its mischief.

If the old rhyme holds true we are now standing at the doorway of forty more days of this blazing splendour. Forty days of shirts sticking to backs. Forty days of cold drinks vanishing faster than you can pour them. Forty days of dogs lying on cool floors with expressions that say they blame us personally for the weather. There is something delightful about it though. Something mythic. As if the land has decided to remind us that folklore is not dead. It is alive and warm and occasionally scorching.

St Swithin’s Day always feels like a moment when the past taps us on the shoulder. Today it has done so with a sunbeam that feels more like a spotlight. We are living inside a story and the story is glowing.

Now, in the spirit of survival and sanity, does anyone know of any good ice cream machines?

Ladies, gentlemen, and those still scraping ice off their cars… it is with great reluctance, and absolutely no surprise, that I must announce that Punxsutawney Phil has betrayed us once again.

Yes. On this sacred Groundhog Day, the furry little meteorological menace emerged from his burrow, took one look around, and declared six more weeks of winter. Six. More. Weeks. As if we haven’t suffered enough.

For those unfamiliar with the ancient lore: Groundhog Day began in the 1800s when people, apparently bored and cold, decided to entrust seasonal forecasting to a rodent. A rodent. Not a druid. Not a wise elder. Not even a slightly drunk farmer with a cloud‑watching hobby. No! a bloody groundhog.

And ever since, this whiskered weather‑wizard has held the Northern Hemisphere hostage with his shadow‑based tyranny.

Well, not this year.

I, do hereby declare WAR on all groundhogs. Phil, his cousins, his agents, his furry little intelligence network, all of them. If winter must continue, then so must the resistance.

• Let it be known: We will not go quietly into another frostbitten morning.
• We will not accept another icy windscreen without complaint.
• We will not bow to the whims of a glorified woodland potato.

Rise up, friends.
Sharpen your snow shovels.
Prepare your thermal socks.

The Great Groundhog Rebellion of 2026 has begun.

Down with Phil. Up with spring.

I genuinely don’t know whether the UK’s infrastructure has quietly regressed, whether people have collectively gone soft, or whether Health & Safety has simply been allowed to run wild across the country.

As I write this, I’m looking out at a light dusting of snow, barely enough to justify calling it “weather,” let alone a national incident. Yet this week we’ve had YELLOW WEATHER WARNINGS on Monday and Tuesday (to be fair, we did get around seven inches), followed by a day of drizzle on Wednesday that melted most of it away… just in time for Thursday’s AMBER WEATHER WARNING. Even today we’re still under another YELLOW warning, as if the sky itself is issuing polite reminders to panic.

And panic people have. The moment a snowflake lands, the supermarkets are stripped bare like locusts have passed through. Ever since the lockdowns of the early ’20s, it seems the slightest disruption sends everyone into full‑scale apocalypse mode. Bread? Gone. Milk? Gone. Common sense? Long gone.

Meanwhile, schools, libraries, public transport, all closed “due to the bad weather.” The schools nearest me, less than a mile away, shut their doors because “no one can get there.” This, despite the fact that the snow is barely an inch deep at its worst and the roads are completely clear.

It’s made me reflect on winters past. I remember years where the snow was several feet deep and nobody batted an eyelid. Growing up, a foot or two of snow was normal. We often had to dig our way out of the house, and the schools still opened as if nothing unusual had happened.

One year in junior school, the snow was well past my knees. I walked a mile through it, and yes, it really was uphill both ways, thanks to my house and the school being on opposite hills. I arrived frozen, clinging to a radiator for dear life, only for the headteacher to tell me my mother had phoned to say it was still snowing heavily and I should come home in case it got worse. Several feet of snow, and the school was open, staffed, and functioning.

Now? Four snowflakes fall in a car park and the entire education system collapses because “no teacher can make it in.”

So I find myself wondering: Have we, as a nation, genuinely become this fragile? Or have we simply surrendered to an army of clipboard‑wielding jobsworths who see danger in every snowflake and liability in every footstep?

Either way, something has changed, and not for the better!

Other then three days of no electricity, Storm Darragh left another nasty side affect. You see, when the power blew the neutral cable into the house was being touched by the live wire, which caused electricity to flow the wrong way through the house circuits.

It was a weird situation. I had no electricity since the cable had melted, so no electricity, all the trips were in the off position, as were the light switches. But even so, some of the lights in the house would flicker on and off as the electricity came up the neutral wires (You can see a photo of the damage and read more information HERE.)

After the three days power was restored, then I had to check all devices to make sure nothing had dies due to the power. The people who came to repair and test the circuit said any damaged items would be repaired or replaced (Although  I still have to see proof of this). Luckily I did not suffer too bad. One of the CCTV’s blew its power supply, My Internet Router blew, and my PS4’s insides died.

So during the holidays over Christmas I was without a gaming system, so out of boredom I powered up my old Xbox 360. I think it has been over a decade since I last booted up the old XBOX.

WOW. was that a blast from the past, seeing my  families old avatars, and friends list, It really brought back many memories of the late night online game sessions. So I have been reliving old favourite games, and mostly cursing at the poor graphics and slow speed.

Storm Darragh has hit the UK in full forth!

The road I live on is blocked in both directions by fallen trees, the road is a river, and around the corner a powerline is sparking dangerously. It is chaos out there, I hope everyone is safe.

Personally I am trapped by blocked roads, so I am unable to get to the Provincial AGM, but I am making the most of it by watching Wales get battered.

The storm got worse, and then the power went out around 11am Saturday morning!

I was not worried about the power cut, they are understandable in bad weather. I did start getting worried when I heard about the live powerline down across the road on my road, and even more so when I saw the burnt out junction box on a nearby pole, with burnt through power lines. This was not going to be a short cut!

I then remembered it was winter, and all my heating and lights are electric, and COFFEE! I may have lost it for a short while, in a panic until I remembered I had access to a camping stove, so coffee was sorted. So I busted out the stove, some torches, and a kindle, and sat down to wait.

Sunday came, and there was no sign of the power returning, so I borrowed a generator that I could run occasionally to power the internet and to recharge torches, phones, etc.

At 9pm Sunday I got excited as 4 vehicles full of engineers turned up to work on the blown joint after fixing the downed line. They were there for ages and managed to get power to most the houses in the area. ALAS not mine, but it was a start right?

Right?

Monday came, and I was cold, bored, and longing for power. At 6pm word came over the local gossip system that engineers were working to replace the downed line, and the houses by there were getting power back! Hope returned. At 7pm the four vehicle team turned up to work on the joint affecting me, and I got really excited.

Until! An engineer came into my place to disconnect the house from the meter. It turns out the blown joint also allowed the live power to back-feed via the neutral wire into a few houses. This was spotted all weekend (until they semi fixed the joint Sunday evening) by lights being on in the house, even though there was no electricity, the trips were all off, and the light switch was off.

This back feeding of power could have done serious damage, so the affected houses had to be disconnected as the power supply was repaired, and then a 3rd part engineer would need to come and test the building to make sure it was safe to be reattached to the national grid.

I can tell you that there was a moment of worry while waiting on permission to get power again. Luckily all was well (I guess we wired the place good) and vert late Monday evening permission was give, and power was returned!

I may have randomly turned lights on all over the place just to celebrate winning over darkness!

Last night I was visiting a friends Lodge in the deepest, darkest wilderness that is Cheshire, England. It was an enjoyable evening, right up to the end of the meal when I happened to check my phone and spot the following text messages :-

“Snowing like hell and sticking, wouldn’t stay too long, weather warning on TV” 18:49

“Stopped snowing but still a good covering, sky looks like more to come.” 19:41

The time I read these messages, 22:01. YES. Several hours after receiving the warning of bad weather, so just how bad would it be now? Since I am a sensible person (Oi! shut it you!!!) I did not stay for any after meal drinks, or late night esoteric discussions, but left immediately after I finished the apple crumble & custard.

The car-park and surrounding area were snow free when I left, which was a good start to the trip home as I will admit I was feeling a little bit worried. The worry of “will I make it home” was added to by the closure of the main route back into Wales, and many other smaller road closures and diversions, meaning most of my trip would be on lesser roads. Roads that may not be gritted, or used as much.

SO the long journey began, along dark misty roads where I was often the only car travelling. All the time I was ready to start dealing with SNOWMAGEDDON!!

Oddly I made it all the way to Wales without seeing even a single snowflake. I decided this was understandable, It is often snowing in Wales and not in England. SO on we went, ever vigilant for the bad weather. 45 Minutes later, and I was almost home. And other than the mist, I had encountered no adverse weather, there was no snow on the ground, or trees, buildings, anywhere.

SO, Maybe there was a heavy rain earlier that had washed away all the snow? That must be it. So I continued on, not so vigilant and singing along to the cdplayer….

1 mile from home I had a decision to make. My normal route goes down a load of country roads which are best avoided in bad weather. The other option was to travel further on and then come back on myself via the local village where the roads can be safer to use in bad weather. Since there had been NO SIGN OF SNOW, not even the left over snow you get on the side of the road, I decided to risk the back country roads. 10 minutes later, I arrived at the turning to the road I live along, and started to turn.

HOLY FRELLING GORRAM FRAK

The road in front of me was white, the trees, hedges white, everything was under an inch of snow. And it was snowing, and snowing heavy. I skidded to a stop and looked behind me, No snow. In front Snow.

There was actually a line level with the end of the road. one side was a complete covering of snow, the other normal black road. One side it was snowing heavy, the other not even rain.

It was then that I realised. I actually live in Narnia!!!

P.S. For those curious, This morning I left for work and went the other way along my road, and at the other end of the road. Yup. another white line where the snow just stops.

After months and months of constant rain the country is about as water logged as it can be, for a while now it has only taken a couple of hours light rain to cause flooding all over the place. So with the ground already to capacity, there has been a kind of Nationwide concern over what would happen when the several feet of snow finally melted.

In fact, the Nationwide worry was so “worrying” that the Government environmental agency issued advice on how to prepare and even help prevent flooding. That amazing, scientific, flood defence advice was………….

…………..Wait for it……………

To build Snowmen!

Yes, the cunning plan was that if everyone went out and built a snowman then flooding would be prevented. The logic being, Snowmen take longer to melt than normal snow, so by converting a lot of normal snow into Snowmen, the melting is staggered and flooding prevented.

Now my first thought on hearing this advice, was the same one you are probably having right now. That somehow “The Great Intelligence Institute” had infiltrated the environmental agency, and was planning on taking over the Earth with its army of Snowmen. (I’d seen something similar on a Documentary screened Christmas time)

I did try to investigate this further by checking with the person who answers to the name “The Doctor”, which was not as easy as it sounds. Knowing that with an army of Snowmen were being built, he would be around somewhere I kept an eye out for an old blue police box. I did not find the Police Box because he had the chameleon circuit working an the Box was now in the guise of a old Red Telephone Box. Unfortunately the Doctors recent regeneration seems to have caused problems with the language centre of his brain. The conversation went something like this :-

WO: “Doc, Can I call you Doc?“

Doc: “What? Can I help you?“

WO: “I think the Great Intelligence is trying to take over the earth again with an army of Snowmen“

Doc: “What? what are you going on about? Who are you?“

WO: “The government’s plan to build an army of snowmen“

Doc: *picks up the phone* “Police. I need help“

I decided then that my work was done, The Doctor was obviously contacting the Police/UNIT in an attempt to help. And help he did.

We had a weekend of rain, all the snow melted but there was no flooding this morning, and suspiciously no Snowmen. I can only assume the Doctor did what he did and fixed it all as we slept… So I’d like to say.

Thanks Doc..

The start of this week saw parts of Wales hit with edges of Hurricane Katia, there was flooding, damage, cats and dogs raining from the sky, the four horsemen of the apocalypse started to saddle thier horses up ready to fly only to have to stand down after health and safety said it was unsafe to ride horses during an apocalypse.*

Luckily With the Ninjas Temple being on high ground, and no where near the coast we survived the worst of the damage & flooding.

Unluckily a rather large, old tree did fall from the excessive winds and smash into the roof of the Ninja Temple. It was impressive, half the building was hidden under the branches of a mighty old tree.

Luckily the temple was built over specification, and the roof is lined with rather thick strong concrete tiles which were able to hold the weight of the tree without doing any obvious damage.

Unluckily it did wipe out the TV aerial. AND during the Rugby World Cup 🙁

Luckily I have a degree in electrical & electronic engineering, with a load of side qualifications in the field. So that particular issue was soon rectified.

So all in all the spiritual power of the Ninja Temple shrugged off the damage dished out by Katia. We are now ready for round 2.