In the week they announced the south of England was having its finest ever Spring, the worst blizzards of the winter arrived in the Highlands. Here’s what one (anonymous) Merkinch poet thought of that!

In Surrey where the song thrush sings
This is the earliest of springs;
The crocus knows no bounds it seems
The sun, once timid, warmly beams.

Out on the golf course, violets thrive;
Such global warming keeps alive
Their joie de vivre. What a shame
The rest of Britain ain’t so tame.

In Wales there’s floods, in Yorkshire too
Poor Cornwall’s drownded west of Looe;
Glasgow’s entirely blown away
(Perhaps it will come back some day).

But in the Highlands, worst of all,
We’ve rarely seen the sun since fall
Here no buds burst, no capercailles
Serenade their loves thrice daily.

For months and months, wet sleet and freak
Storms and blizzards, gales that wreak
Much havoc for us shivering natives
And all our friends and rela-ta-tives.

Why don’t we winter in the Med
Before our blood turns into lead?
Why don’t we leave the rain, the ice?
Pack up and settle somewhere nice?

But wait, the sun’s come out at last,
An easing of the wintry blast.
What if the drifts won’t melt away:
Here I am and here I stay!