close to the elements

I should preface the following by stating that I don't welcome tsunamis and other natural disasters that cause unmentionable and prolonged suffering.

It's snowing, in case you hadn't noticed. There seem to be two camps where snow's concerned: those who detest it, those who love it. I belong to the latter. I used to be so disappointed that when the rest of the UK was dealing with the problem, Edinburgh escaped with a light covering of the stuff and that melted within hours. Now all that's changing. Snow ploughs are needed to clear the streets of Auld Reekie, schools are closed, even the Forth Road Bridge has been shut, an unprecedented move, apparently.

While we lived in France we saw plenty of snow, not just in the mountains, but further down. It was wonderful. I love extremes of weather, in fact that was one of the best things about France. Loads of snow, loads of sunshine and thunderstorms galore, and of course beautiful springs and autumns. We would go out in search of 'weather'. It sounds barking, I know, but that was our shorthand.

I've always had a thing about being close to the elements. Years ago when I lived in Australia, I was persuaded by my then partner to go camping. I had great reservations about spending five weeks under canvas. In fact, being such a huge country, it was de rigeur to do an organised trip, with driver, cook etc. In case that sounds wimpy, we covered 11,000 miles during that time. When it came to it, I didn't mind sleeping in a tent. And the nights in the bush were brilliant. All that redness and those glorious sunsets. Baking damper bread underground. There were no facilities - if you needed a poo, you found the shovel and bucket of water, buried your offerings when you were done. Weeks later, on our return to the UK, we experienced the Monsoon in Thailand. I exhilarated in such heavy rain, amazed by the fact that five minutes after it stopped our clothes had dried in the heat. I revelled in the thunderstorms in France.

I love reading books with descriptions of extreme weather. The American writer, Anita Shreve, uses the east coast of the US for most of her settings. She spares the reader no details of winter: the bitter cold, the snow storms. My favourite titles are Light on Snow and Strange Fits of Passion. Contrastingly, Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, a delightful story about a teenage girl struggling to co-exist with her father in South Carolina, is a visual extravaganza of the imagination. The descriptions of peach-coloured sunsets are amazing. I suppose this is about the pleasure of experiencing something new. I've never been to South Carolina or needed to survive the harsh winters in New England.

The pièce de résistance from my own life, where elements are concerned, happened in Sri Lanka, on our first night there - swimming with a storm brewing. It wasn't a grand hotel by any means, nor was it a smart-looking pool - which made it better. At dusk we swam in this pool, accompanied by the sound of wind heaving waves to the shore, palm trees swaying. A calypso band played as we ate our first dinner. And later still we watched rain lash down on the pool and trees blowing helplessly. It was magic.










Reminiscingly yours

Jane