Brecon Beacons is the plan.

Rain is flopping out of the sky right now, it makes a change, it is usually being driven into the ground with some force.  Every day seems to bring its share of rain at the moment.

Having spoken to the local farmers it seems this year was a close run thing.  General agreement not enough rain when they needed it earlier in the year.  Not sure they are too pleased to see it this time of year either.  Will make an effort to find out, I will be seeing a couple of farmers this week for sure.

Rabbits ate the allotment so rain was irrelevant for me.

It is against this grey backdrop I am currently making plans to visit the Brecon Beacons.  It has been a long time since I went to Wales and on that occasion it was a motoring holiday.

From a weather perspective there never seems a good time to visit Wales.  It is all about the rain whenever I think of the place.  If you work for the Welsh Tourist Board don’t bother telling me any different, I am immune to statistics.

When I think of it in summer I imagine the hills crawling with day-glo tourists their voices too close for comfort.  Currently the fashion trend seems to be for “look at me” colours.  I don’t need to see most of them, I can hear them.

I am not a people person.  Not quite true, you have to be the right sort of person, it happens most are not and people in any number are never going to be the right sort.  Sports events and pubs are the places for crowds and I like them there.

Anyway the plan is September, children back in the low security prisons I once remember being schools.  Parents will be retied to their children’s shoelaces.  The days will be drawing in and the weather potentially less predictable.  This combo reduces crowds considerably.

And on the subject of weather, here is my tired old two-pence:

Summer in the UK seems to be more a race memory than an actual season nowadays though.  “Summer’s aren’t what they used to be”, “In my day…” etc etc, but for some reason every year we expect/plan on the assumption somehow the clock will spin back to those distant summers of endless sunshine and are continually surprised when they are not.

It might be because we simply forget having spent the winter complaining how winter’s aren’t what they used to be.

Summer not sunny enough, winter’s not cold enough.  Spring earlier every year, Autumn seems to have disappeared of the seasonal landscape.  All because of global warming.  We are all experts in the weather because we can nod our heads wisely “its global warming dont-cha-know”  Weather patterns have to behave erratically otherwise we could not talk about global warming.

In the 1970’s we were heading for a new ice-age, that was the thing worrying us then.

Regardless of all this, or because of it, Brecon Beacons is pencilled in for September. 

I need to get planning these things have a habit of being months into the future right up until the moment you are leaving tomorrow.