Saint Andrew's Day weather and its sense of timing.

     Today is St. Andrew’s Day and I was due to be on grandfather duty in Edinburgh this evening. I boarded the 5.45am Auld Reekie bound train at Totnes, Devon. The weather as we passed through the West Country, the Midlands and South Yorkshire was clement. The sun shone brightly in the sky until we passed by Thirsk Station in North Yorkshire where we encountered fierce, almost white out blizzards that continued through County Durham, and Northumberland though on approaching the Scottish border we returned to sunny weather without a hint of snow.

     A young man from Bahrain sat in one of the seats across the aisle from me. I know he was a Bahraini because he had been drawn into  conversation by two Scottish military veterans, who were sitting behind me.  I gathered from what they said that the two old warhorses, one RAF, and the other, Black Watch, had been down south attending a convention for old warriors who had served in the Middle East. Among the topics of the  conversation between the two Scots and the Bahraini - a conversation which for much of the time was one-sided - were, firstly, the rôle of British forces in Aden during the 1960s and 1970s and, secondly, the veterans’ advice to the young Bahraini on which tourist attractions he should visit during his stay in Edinburgh. Over time the conversation wained until the snows came and one of the veterans asked the young man if he had seen snow before. He replied that he had not known it to snow in Bahrain. The old airman observed that we were still in England,  "Wait 'til you get to Scotland you'll see real snow there".

        

     As we crossed the Scottish border in magnificent sunshine the veterans became increasingly dismayed. There was no snow here and in a not quite spoken way they gave out an impression that the Scottish weather  - by holding back on the snowfall -  had let them and Scotland down. Comical, ridiculous and pathetic was what I thought, knowing that, whether I liked it or not, I had the same thought and feeling as my battle worn compatriots.  I remembered the line from the Proclaimers' song Letter from America. "You know our sense of timing we always wait too long."  Even our weather does. 

I wasnae that fashed tae ha'e a day named efter me

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