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Columnist Martin Roberts offers his distinctive monthly take on caravanning

IT’S A FEW days in to spring and we are so snowbound, the RAF are dropping emergency food rations by parachute to the Somerset village where I live. A state of emergency has been declared in our nearest city, a half-marathon cancelled, and more than 1000 people have taken up unexpected residence on a nearby stretch of the M5. Yet last week, the garden was bursting into life. The daffodils were doing their thing and I’d unpacked my shorts. You’ve got to love the British weather. You’ll remember that last summer, my marital status took a turn for the divorce courts as a result of the August monsoon that coincided with our holiday in Dorset. And instead of a white Christmas, we all had a patio barbecue this year. Are our traditional points of seasonal reference valid any more? Have all those flatulent cows, or Chinese factories, or rainforest barbarians, or mad inventors finally reset the environmental clock and put global warming on the front burner? It’s hard not to wonder. Yesterday I met Michael Fish, the legendary weatherman. He was my partner on the TV quiz show Celebrity Pointless and without giving too much away, he was as good as his confident prediction that there would be ‘no hurricane’ in 1987, on the eve of probably the most devastating storms to hit the UK. He was lovely, though, and he is now giving lectures about climate change. “There’s a wind blowing from Siberia that’s taking cold air and snow across the UK, and all the way to the east coast of America,” he told me, explaining the current blizzards. “It’s never happened before and it’s causing chaos.” I’m sure someone in America is already blaming this on a Russian conspiracy, but it does make you think. The Celebrity Pointless co-host, Alexander Armstrong, brought up the issue of my Practical Caravan column during the show, with a mischievous glint in his eye. I responded with a most spirited rebuttal of his implied derogatory view of caravanning, and suggested he give it a try. He agreed, fingers crossed behind his back. (The episode will air in the autumn and you can watch and see!). But back to the weather, of course – all this offers up a conundrum. When do you book your holiday? Well, that’s where we caravanners have the advantage over those bookyour-weeks-in-the-sun-sixmonths-in-advance types like Mr Armstrong. If it’s a nice day, we just hook up and go. Talking of which, the snow is still falling here in Somerset. I hear they are declaring a state of emergency and sending in the troops. I for one can’t wait for summer.

‘Snow is still falling, they’ve declared a state of emergency and I for one can’t wait for summer’