We certainly had more than our fair share of sunshine throughout March and into the start of April. Not only were sunshine hours up, but rainfall was well below norms.
“In like a lion, out like a lamb” is a March weather proverb dating back to a 1792 compendium by Thomas Fuller, the English physician and writer. His book, Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs; Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British, contains many interesting snippets of weather lore. March is a month, Fuller observes, where “many-weathers rain’d and blow’d”. He also offers the intriguing suggestion that “so many mists in March you see/ so many frosts in May will be”.
And April has shown two faces this year - the borrowing days have come late in the month, there wasn’t much to skin Branny.
With the highest temperatures of the year at the end of the month in the mid- twenties Celsius - April was unlike April!
As we hurtle on into May and June, the hope for a good summer season ahead is palpable in the general populace.
