Turn down the sun and switch on the wind

It depends where you’re living, of course. As a Briton living in the relentless heat of the tropics, I look at the BBC world news and see that back in the UK they’re all wearing coats and bracing themselves against the cold, while I’m wearing as little as possible and sometimes changing my shirt three times a day.

I occasionally meet others from the chilly countries and we inevitably swap stories. Once I talked to a couple who were from the south of Canada, and so sick were they of the heat in this part of the world that when they went home for a holiday, they found Vancouver too mild and went up north because they wanted to be really cold for a while.

There’s an expression in the UK, often prefaced by something like: ‘my Dad used to tell me...’: ‘You’ve got to have a winter to have a summer,’ and while it would take a bit of research and interpretation to prove or disprove that, the thought is a pleasant enough one. How about a couple of feet of snow - the steady, thick, peaceful, Disney type - that lasts for weeks and forces us all to re-evaluate our need to leave the house (and certainly our need to use a car). Put another log on the fire, or turn the heating up a notch, and read the whole of the weekend papers, rather than wasting half a tree by only looking at one section.

Perhaps for some people life really is like a Christmas card scene, a winter idyll spent cracking walnuts in their elbows, roasting chestnuts for loved ones and peeling tangerines.

In an ideal world there would be a seamless transition from the snowdrifts into a balmy spring and a blazing summer. No slush or clearing up and certainly no March winds.

It may be futile to wonder why anyone should put up with coldish, damp days in exchange for warmish, overcast ones later on - but there is nothing wrong with a bit of November daydreaming.

If you have always lived in Trinidad and Tobago, you probably won’t understand this sort of thinking, because you’ve had heat thrown at you every day of your life. And it has to be said that art and language tell us that hot is good and cold is bad. What quality do we seek above all in a lover or a friend? Warmth.

We speak of being left out in the cold. An attractive girl is said to be “hot”.

But how about a bit of variety? Bring on the blizzard if it comes with a free heatwave next year.

Let’s have the steady, cool rain that heralds a hot, dry spell from May to September. Fair exchange is no robbery, to use a blindingly obvious saying for which I can find noone to accept responsibility.

We’re all very wise these days, if the expressions we use are any guide. A popular choice is the carousel- inspired ‘What goes around comes around’, ie if you do something (usually bad), the same will happen to you later.

Perhaps the only saving grace of bad weather is the safe, snug feeling caused by the sound of rain on the roof and windows when we’re not out in it. It’s a strange feeling to analyse, though, and I’m not entirely sure it is all about being grateful for the invention of slates and tiles. It is more to do with the sound and possibly the vibrations.

As for thunder and lightning, the world seems to be split into those who love it and those who are terrified.

Even normally logical people who know that sleet and hail were not sent to chastise us for eating chocolate will be quite happy to credit the sudden occurrence of a loud storm as being significant if they have just made a particularly weighty decision. It’s the incidental music of nature, the equivalent of the excited piece of orchestration that tells us during a film that something especially dramatic is happening.

Modern science can’t be too far away from regulating the weather, and I’m sure I’ve heard of planes being sent up to disperse clouds.

When it becomes possible to programme the climate there will be an outcry against the idea by those who don’t want to meddle with nature, and as far as I’m concerned, they can go and live in Antarctica, where no one is going to turn up the heat for fear of drowning the planet. Me? I’ll be in a tree house in Castara, enjoying the sight of icicles on the boats before the climate reverts to the setting on the dial marked “Tobago standard.”