Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing” – Some guy
I’ve only heard this saying recently, even though it sounds like the most Irish thing anyone could ever say. Except, when you think about it, it isn’t, because nobody in Ireland has suitable clothing, and the weather is so truly awful that it drives many people to drink. But is it that bad? Or do we just like complaining about it?
Primetime television this week brought us the bizarre spectacle of a guest shipped in to tell us how to apply clothing suitable for the imminent need to eat our Christmas dinner on the street in a couple of months time. The guest, an actual Arctic explorer, reminded viewers of the importance of pulling up your head, an essential survival skill when abseiling from K2 or handling a frosty pint of Heino in the alley by Pygmalion after ye’ve moved on from your Christmas party.
Believe it or not, there’s worse weather elsewhere. Tropical countries get monsoons that would test the structure of any house. We don’t get many hurricanes, forest fires, tsunamis, floods… well they could be worse. And there’s no earthquakes. A lot of people around the world could – and do – envy the relative mildness of the Irish climate. But still… it’s not really much comfort when it’s the middle of February and you’re depressed out of your mind because it hasn’t stopped raining in five days and you haven’t seen the sun in three weeks.
It’s not winter yet, but the shift has happened. The summer is over and we’re well into autumn. The other day I’d to wait five minutes in the driveway for the ice to melt off the windshield of the car. When I got to the beach at Achill, I buried my head in the phone as I queued for the toilet. While looking downwards I thought I could feel my toes getting cold, but when I lifted my head I realised my face was warm from the sun.
Some regret the end of summer, seeing it as the end of the year, or at least their enjoyment put on hiatus until the Christmas season – ever longer every year – begins to approach. But one man’s meat is another man’s poison. It’s a useful thing in this country, to not only not fear the weather, but to be able to enjoy it. If you take your head out of your phone – or even your head – for a moment or tow, you may find that the air brings a noticeable but pleasant freshness to the senses, first through the nostrils before it’s felt all over the rest of the body.
The beach and the sea are not the same to us as they are to the Spanish, or Italians, or people from Thailand. We do get rare days where you can put down a towel and sun yourself, periodically venturing into the water to cool down, splash around, come back and enjoy a cocktail (except they don’t sell cocktails on the beaches here).
We don’t have those flat, boring beaches they have elsewhere, which serve purely as facilitators of inertia and inaction. A climate where the slightest movement causes you to break out in a sweat; even stillness itself requires perspiration and exhausts you. Those tropical beaches are boring. They have their place, for holidays. The popular dream of retiring on a beach to drink cocktails would have you bored to tears after a few hours though. You’d stagnate, die, be one of those people who died early into retirement because they’d lost their purpose.
Our beaches have more in common with mountains – they inspire activity and adventure rather than relaxation. You can’t get out of the car at Old Head without having to rub your hands together to get a bit of heat going, at the very least. Irish weather is rugged and wild, and the landscape likewise. I suppose you don’t really have one without the other – the weather shapes the landscape, and in turn reflects it. Accept that the Atlantic Ocean has you rattled, and that you and your ancestors have been driven mad by it over your lifetime, and for generations before that. And then take off all your clothes and go swimming in it, ya lunatic.
Instead of dreading the shortening of the days, look forward instead to the cold and the wind. Every bit of wind could bring with it waves to surf, or it could even change the world around us. The rain is nothing to be feared when you willingly embrace the water. My brother confided to me before that he was starting to fail to see the point of getting in the water if it were warm. What good is the ocean if it doesn’t shock your senses, forces you into the present moment, to where you are. If you were bobbing around in the comforting bath-like water of the Mediterranean, you’d only be daydreaming about lying on the beach, or in a bath. It’s redundant.
Sometimes it just takes a change of clothes, and not even warmer ones. I’d find it amazing that I’d be walking to the shop in three layers of jumpers and jackets and shivering, and then an hour later going out for a run in just a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and I’d be far warmer at the later hour. That to me says it’s all in your head. Like how someone kicks a ball to you and you’re in your good jeans and runners, and you’re there poking it with your toe with your hands in your pockets. It’s not the same as being togged out. When you’re decked out in football kit, suddenly being wrapped in a blanket of sweat and cold mud becomes more warming than any bit of endurance kit an Arctic explorer could recommend on primetime TV.
There is much to enjoy in the winter. Put on a fire and enjoy the naturally shorter days, with less pressure to be out and about. Get some reading or writing done or catch up on TV. Or just chill out and recuperate after a hectic summer. Football and sporting seasons. There’s an excitement in the shortening of the days in itself. This is a grand time of year anyway. It’s not until January and February that you really start to get sick of it. And there’s something about this time of year that you can’t put your finger on at all, something wonderful and heart-warming that can’t be explained rationally or logically, something our ancestors could explain with the celebration of Hallowe’en, or Samhain, or the Day of the Dead. All it takes is a shift in mindset. There’s no joy on a beach in Ireland anyway, only adventure. If you give yourself a reason to enjoy the winter it’ll make it that bit easier. Especially if you have appropriate clothing.