August 7th 2021 Whatever-the-Weather social event

It been a tradition for some years that Chris(tine) O arranges an annual Whatever-the-Weather at Chris & Ian’s house in the Edale valley (but we live in Hope – especially when rain is forecast ). With only two exceptions to date we have been blessed with either warm or hot, or in 2017 very hot, weather. But it poured cats and dogs for our July 2019 WtW, so we were hoping for a dry warm day for this year’s WtW, as Covid19 put paid to last year’s WtW social event. But we were wrong – it bucketed down in the morning, then the sun briefly came out at midday, only for the weather to start to worsen again.

Due to inclement weather, illness and some reservations about meeting indoors due to Covid19, numbers were down to 26 – well down on recent numbers. Never-the-less everyone enjoyed socialising whilst we munched on Chris O’s home made cheese scones, or other scones made with her redcurrant jam, topped off with clotted cream – along with cakes, sandwiches and all sort of other goodies generously and thoughtfully provided by our 2021 WtW attendees.

As per usual Chris arranged a quiz, with part of the quiz being a treasure hunt to find objects secreted all around the downstairs of our house – nothing hidden in the garden this year! Robert and Freddie Nicklin, aided by their gran, searched high and low and came out victorious. Adding to the points that they gained in the quiz. Two of the quiz questions related to the names of the Roman and Greek sun-gods. So Chris & I will be calling upon these gods to provide warm and dry weather for the 2022 Whatever-the-Weather.

Perversely, just as the last few socialites were leaving, the rain stopped and the sun broke through. Giving sufficient time for Nick C to dry out, as Nick had walked in from the centre of Hope – deliberately wearing shorts to allow his legs to dry out quicker. But our traditional annual social event is called Whatever-theWeather for a reason:

Here’s a section of the photos covering the our 2021 WtW (Click on to the images to view them in greater detail, and use the arrow keys to move from one image to another:

Thank you Chris O for your hard and effective work in making a success of yet another WtW, and thank you to everyone who attended. It was really great to meet up again after too many months isolated in our homes. Had it not been for the excellent Zoom meetings arranged by Roger M, Ian S, etc., today may have been the first time our happy band of photographers and partners had met up since our March 2020 meeting (when speaker Jean Walker Warden talked about her exploits travelling to the North Pole).