Spots on

Iceland is a wonderful place. From their awesome scenery, with volcanoes around almost every corner, and glaciers scrunching their way towards the sea, to their predisposition towards every conceivable type of fish prepared in almost every conceivable way, their minuscule population, most of which is centred in the capital, to their world-class symphony orchestra, drawn from a total population a third the size of Cardiff's, Iceland is a place where life and death, art and science are sharply juxtaposed.

We'd probably panic somewhat, if Snowdon starting erupting, particularly as Snowdon isn't volcanic, but that's a minor matter. But Icelanders?  They pack sandwiches, warm clothes and a thermos and go out to have a picnic and watch the eruptions.

And they're a delightful, warm, pragmatic and highly educated people, whose command of English would put many a native speaker to shame. Their volcanoes also erupt quite frequently, which poses the question as to why we don't remember all this trouble with ash before.  The answer, as the lyricist would say, is blowing in the wind.

For a few months we've been in the grip of an odd weather pattern, which is doing nothing to blow all the ash away from us.  This time of the year we'd normally be watching the spring flowers decimated by the traditional spring storms, gales, deluges of rain and overcast skies.  Now - none of it. This, apparently, may be down to sunspots, the lack of which is possibly going to cause a few years of colder than average winters, which is doubtless good news for the energy industry, kids whose schools have to close and ski retailers. Sunspots are not, as they may sound, a solar form of acne, although the current state of the sun does suggest that it's had the galactic equivalent of Clearasil applied. They are an indicator of the sun's activity, and, although it's been getting more active for the past 400 years, it's now started to become less active - a trend which is likely to continue for the next 100 years. But hey! Let's look on the bright side.  At least we won't have to worry about that air-conditioning for a while.