Mackerel skies and plastic bags

In the days before weather forecasts, the internet and plastic bags, it was said that a storm follows a mackerel sky. Seeing clouds like mare’s tails or flocks of sheep, sailors would lower their sails knowing that in a few hours, they would encounter a storm.

“Mare’s tails and mackerel scales, make lofty ships take in their sails.”

After the gale force winds this week, followed by snow today, I searched the internet and discovered that mackerel skies are small, fluffy cirrocumulus clouds of ice crystals which form at high altitudes ahead of weather fronts bringing strong winds, usually within 6-8 hours. If I was a weather forecaster and I had known this fact on Tuesday, when what resembled white fish scales rippled across the sky, I would have been forewarned. And I would have moved my recycling bin to safety.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, winds of 60 mph battered the country, rattling our windows and our front door. Waking up the dog. Twice. Who woke me up. Twice —  waiting until I’d just dropped off to sleep first, of course. A solitary bark is an order to go downstairs. I ignored it. Ten seconds later, another loud bark. And another. My husband was oblivious: either asleep or pretending to be. But I guess he does have to go out to work, and as he sometimes likes to point out, I sit around all day. “I write!” I tell him, “I’m working on my second book — novels don’t just happen overnight!”

But this storm had. Blindly slipping my feet into slippers and throwing a dressing gown around me, I trudged downstairs. The wind was banging on the glass and our dog was straining, desperate to see who was out there. As soon as I opened the door, she went crazy, dashing all over the lawn, side-stepping like a world-class rugby player. Trying to find the intruder. The recycling bin was lying on the ground and bits of plastic were swirling around. The wind just laughed and another gust shook the trees.

“Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, not long wet and not long dry!”

Eventually, I snatched a couple of hours’ sleep until my alarm clock woke me, for a moment cutting out the noise of the storm. The curtains were being blown inwards by the draft and when I opened them, I could see a white plastic bag caught in a prickly bush just outside the garden. It was dancing like a flag, trying to get free — right in the line of vision of the window where I sit and write. I knew how vicious these bushes are; it’s the reason I didn’t cut them last year. I knew that the bag would get more and more entrenched and stay trapped for months. It had to go.

Operation Plastic Bag here we come!

Protection: thick garden gloves, boots, waterproof trousers (once bought for standing in the cold on the touch-lines watching eight-year-old boys flock after each other trying to kick a football); and my husband’s large waxed jacket (come on ladies, you wouldn’t want your jacket to be scratched either, would you?) Equipment: kitchen stool. Weapon: secateurs.

I was ready. For the next twenty minutes, I hacked through the berberis and pyracantha — labelled “To scratch a thief,” it was doing a good job of scratching me! At last, the white plastic bag was flapping like a fish on a hook. Reeling in the long branch, I snipped the end, holding my prize aloft. Job done!

Next time I see the sky with tiny white fluffy clouds, I’ll wheel our bin into the garage, heeding my proverb:

“Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, beware that plastic bags will fly!”