Here’s The Weather

Today in London, the weather man speaks of damp and of cold. In Scotland... It’s dreich with outbreaks of smirr, the occasional hoolie, advice in the papers to look oot yer woolies, a sudden dramatic surge & spike in the sales of threetiered winterdykes, the urge to girn & to haiver & blether carnaptious, forfochen & scunnert by weather, dance round the double-edged sword of fash, dinged doon by the elements, loving stramash and the trauchle of baltic, foonert & droukit fair molocates fears ye’re a diddy or stupid, yer puckle concerns on the £ or on Brexit. It’s the cant o the climate & aabody gets it eeksie-peeksie, we mump & we greet & we tyauve it fae Lerwick tae Perth, fae Kirkcaldy tae Hawick, gan on how we hadnae a summer, it’s affy and on wi the thermals & semmits & baffies, gan oot for the messages, endin up pecht wi the hail turravee, it’s a gey sair fecht against pavements like ice rinks & wrasslin wi wind and the nights that forever are fair drawin in, shilpit & footerin & plooterin awa through the dubs & the glaur & the clart & the snaw, stravaigin through cundies & sheughs, a galoot wi yer brolly destroyed & yer breeks hingin oot, the haar & the virr & the flaggies & spitters, the snell air that skelps ye & gies ye the chitters, that makes ye doolally & drives ye tae swally and sunbeds & creams tae be less peely-wally. It’s the weather of language, the language of weather penning us, writing us all in together, the patter like watter that aabody kens fae schemes tae the islands, fae high-rise tae glen. Fae stooshie tae fankle tae bouroch tae dreck we’re steeped in the downpour of dialect which foosts & bumbazes & shoogles & heezes, skites, dights, invites us, unites us & frees us.