I just walked through a rainbow (and a hail shower)

And I just took an abysmal photograph of them both! With the widest wide angle I could get on my pocket camera I still needed three images nailed together manually, and it doesn't do it any justice. This is how my walk began:

A gateway into a field with gentle sun backlighting traces of misty vapour rising from the soil

My breath was steaming, all was cold enough to make me thankful for the extra fleece under my topcoat. Only the excessive but proudly-worn nostril hair of the rural middle-aged man insulated my face enough to prevent it cracking like a poorly-maintained glacier. Only the rampant hobbit-hair growing unchecked in my ears prevented my jaw hinges from freezing solid while I tried to blow vapour-rings. Only insulating eyebrows the size of poisonous Amazonian furry elephant-caterpillars prevented my eyes from sticking in the "crossed" position, focussed on the end of my nose, looking for "smoke" rings that were never going to work. Still, I was wearing layers so all was well ...

Have a look at that formation and tell me how to dress for my walk...

There then of course immediately ensued lots of bright and sunny spells when layers had to be unzipped and removed and a chap's hat began to feel like an over-thick tea-cosy on an over-full teapot. It was as well to keep an itchy trigger finger on the zip-toggles though, because it seemed that those clouds may - or may not - perform at any moment. I twitched one way and the weather twitched the other. It's always a game of bluff in Blighty.

The first of the "test" rainbows before the big show.

Weather in England is supplied by Her Majesty's The Met Office. This morning the The Met Office threw up a few half-hearted test rainbows, presumably just to make sure that the system was working properly on all legally-required colours and that the bend-o-meter was calibrated to "steady curve shape".

Well, it was at about this point in the stroll - having been frozen, rained on and then given a token winter sun-tan that there appears to have been some sort of civil unrest or other incident in this very the The Met Office Control Room. Possibly a small weatherman went "postal" or was about to retire, maybe terrorists tried to take charge and there were fisticuffs. Anyway, someone, somehow, some why cranked up the sonic oscillators to maximum, pushed all of the little rainbow hue sliders past the safety limit and then rang through to the Power Station to ask for Emergency Volts and Wartime Amps.

Possibly the worst rainbow photo you'll see this decade. Good thing I'm not a professional. Oh, hang on though ... oops!

What you have there is a hail shower off to the left, a hedgerow to the right basking in truly warm sunshine, thunderous grey clouds like an invading army forward and overhead with a semi-circular technicolour treat spanning the lane. It looks ho-hum here, to me it looked magical.

In fact, if not in this photograph, an amazing rainbow buzzed like a neon sign straddling the lane that I was walking on (at my customary three or four steamship knots and the occasional skip, hop, stumble). Who could possibly resist walking on through the archway of a rainbow? I couldn't - I walked until the angles all changed and it faded overhead. I had crossed over to the other side of a rainbow!

Night descends, during the day.

Well, surprise, surprise, surprise - as soon as I got "through" the sun went out. It didn't just hide behind deep cloud, it coughed and spluttered and the birds stopped singing while they waited to see if it would come back on again. I got the impression that I had broken the weather or something. We had a minor monsoon that stretched maybe twenty yards in front of me and twenty behind (oh very personal, thank you very much indeed, yes and lovely). Aware of my responsibility to the community at large, I decided to take the hint, hang a U-turn and head for home back through the archway and see if that would make amends.

Just after I'd performed my u-turn and was heading back home.

Bzzzzt, cue the blinding glare and cue the Aviator shades! At that moment the emergency must have been cancelled, the weather-terrorists subdued or something equally heartwarming. Back to "normal" (rain, sleet, wind, stillness, sunshine, warmth, cold, all in any old order).

You have to chuckle at a The Meteorological Office where they obviously have very little idea what they are doing and almost no control over anything meteorological.

Welcome to England!

Mind the gap, dress in layers, always have a waterproof, sun-screen, sunglasses and an extra fleece with you. Be certain that the dog's lead is securely fitted for you will surely be flying him like a kite at some point during the day and at others be using him as an anchor for yourself. Be prepared to be roasted, frozen, blown over like a penguin in the wake of a jet engine, treated to eerie silences and stillness, accept that half of your weather will be in pure monochrome and get ready to jump up and down when in the middle of all that someone plonks a neon rainbow right over your head. Bobble hats, umbrellas, wellington boots and exothermic underwear optional (at your own risk). And, if you should walk through the archway of a rainbow, be careful and take a torch...