Weathering the storm

It`s strange, being scared of the weather.

I`m British, and we`re not scared of anything; mainly because there`s nothing in Britain to be scared of. Excluding the odd crazy pitbull, we don`t have one single dangerous animal – we used to have bears and wolves but we rather indignantly killed them all for daring to be so damn scary and having such pointy teeth and nails – and the concept of natural disasters is completely alien to us; if an earthquake somewhere else causes a teacup to rattle slightly somewhere in Bedford it makes front page news, and the idea of living in fear of our houses falling down at any old time of the day or night just seems ridiculous. Even other people`s natural disasters throw us into chaos: a volcano erupts in Iceland and Britain grinds to a panicked, incredulous standstill (“You what? I can`t go on holiday to Crete because of Mother Nature? What the bloody hell is that all about?”).

I once worked in the Human Resources department of a major factory, and during a contract change there was outright chaos and confusion when we got to the `act of God` part of the clause.
“What does that mean?” one of the workers asked the tired manager who had answered this question fifteen times in two days.
“It means if something disastrous happens which is out of our hands.”
“Like what? Like faulty wiring?”
“No, that`s not an act of God.”
“Like broken down lorries?”
“No, that`s not an act of God either.”
There was a buzz of confusion.
“Like what, then?”
“Like a tsunami. Or an earthquake. Or a tidal wave. Or a hurricane. Or a typhoon. Or a plague of locusts.”
“In Hatfield?”
“Exactly. I don`t think we need to worry about that too much.”
There was a thoughtful silence, and then one of the other workers piped up with:
“We did have very heavy snow last year, though, didn`t we. It took me a full hour to get to work.”
And then there was a violent murmur of agreement, while everyone discussed just how disastrous the snowfall had been, and how they hadn`t seen anything like it since 1989, and how it could easily happen again and they needed to be protected against such phenomenon.
“Because I don`t see why I should lose a day`s wages just because Mother Nature is in a bad mood,” a lorry driver added, and they all applauded vigorously.

So, all in all, we`re not very scared of Mother Nature in Britain. Apart from the odd bit of snow and volcano ash that dares to travel from a less civilised part of the world – a place that dares erupt without giving any warning – we don`t see much sign of her. We see her on the news now and then, and we read about her in the papers if something really bad happens somewhere else, but that`s the key point: it`s somewhere else. Brits are thus born and bred to be utterly impervious to the power of Nature, because our little island is wrapped in the largest piece of cotton wool the world has ever produced.

(Which doesn`t mean that the weather isn`t a massive conversational topic in Britain. Of course it is: we live for it. Rainy, sunny, cloudy, windy; we`ll discuss it until we can think of something better to complain about. We just don`t assume at any stage that it might end up killing us. Mainly because it won`t, unless we`re that one person a decade who gets hit by lightening because they climbed up a telegraph pole in the middle of a storm.)

So, as British as I am – and I am truly, truly, inherently British – when I woke up last night to find the windows of my house rattling and things banging outside and rain hammering onto the roof and the wind howling like one of the wolves we exterminated centuries ago - huffing and puffing and trying to blow my house down - I was a bit frightened. Actually, I was really frightened. The weather isn`t supposed to do that. The weather is supposed to be a background effect, but this weather wasn`t even vaguely background; it was very, very foreground, and making a big fuss and nonsense to make sure we all noticed it.

So I reacted just like a British person would. In a half asleep state I panicked a bit and thought I was about to die, and then I dragged my bed away from the window (convinced that this extra foot might save my life for some reason), and checked to see if there were any trees nearby, and then ran to every single window and made sure the curtains were closed. Then I filled up a bottle of water in case my house collapsed and I was trapped under rubble with nothing to drink, and grabbed some biscuits in case I got hungry. Finally – as it got worse and worse and I was gripped by the conviction that it was the worst typhoon ever to hit Miyazaki, and there was about to be an earthquake too, and that a tidal wave was about to rise up and drown me in my bed – I got out of bed and sleepily started Googling typhoons in Japan for April 2010, to see how bad it was going to be. To prepare myself for the worst, you know. ANd to see if there were any tips on how to survive this kind of trauma.

Nothing.

Then I Googled storms in Japan for April 2010.

Nothing.

There was nothing. No earthquake, no hurricane: it wasn`t even a typhoon, or a storm worth mentioning on the internet. It was just a strong bit of wind. Typhoons can kill people – typhoons have killed people – and earthquakes and tidal waves certainly have; but you`d have to be pretty unlucky to be killed by a strong bit of wind. You`d have to be standing directly underneath a tree with very weak roots.

The thing about Japan is that the people here live with the presence of Mother Nature every single day. They know that a massive earthquake could happen, they know that when it does a tidal wave will happen, they know that massive and life threatening typhoons batter them a few times every summer and they just have to try and get through it. But they respect it, and they appreciate it, and it doesn`t frighten them. They understand it. They even admire it; it`s awe inspiring and humbling, to see, feel and hear the wrath of nature and realise exactly how pathetic and tiny and vulnerable we all are, like little ants standing up bravely against a massive saucepan of hot water, just waiting to drop on us.

I`ll be alright, though. Earthquakes, tidal waves, typhoons, hurricanes, a strong big of wind; there`s nothing that Japan can do that will scare me now. I was there for the snow storm in Hatfield last year. I was an hour late for work too. Mother Nature doesn`t scare me, no matter how angry she gets.

I am British, after all.