Tag Archives: Snoopy

It was a dark and stormy night. If only…

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Joanna is becoming obsessed with the hot weather

Image by vat loai from Pixabay

Sophie’s blog last week, about the blessings of water, was timely. The heat continues, though here in the Midlands, it’s more bearable than in London, I imagine. But what would we give for dark and stormy or just a bit of rain? Perhaps we’d go outside and dance in it?

Not necessarily a storm as bad as the one shown, though 😉

I’ve blogged before about weather during heatwaves and, specifically, about that fount of weather wisdom, Snoopy. He usually began his pearls of wisdom with: “It was a dark and stormy night”. You can see some of the cartoons on that earlier blog. I particularly enjoyed Snoopy’s more subtle start to a story: “It was a sort of dark and kind of stormy night.”

The originator of It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

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Weather in stories, with thanks to Snoopy

Stifling weather…

As we’re sweltering in this hot weather, I thought it might be interestng to blog about weather and writing. With a nod to the patron saint of writers, Charles M Schultz‘s wonderful Snoopy. That’s the Snoopy who longs to be a bestselling writer and who always—well, nearly always—begins his stories with his tried and tested formula about the weather.Snoopy start with weather: it was a dark and stormy nightTo be fair, there are variants and I had fun searching them out. With a grateful acknowledgement to Schultz and the Peanuts strip, here are a couple of weather variants you might enjoy. First there’s subtleSnoopy applies subtlety to the weather Continue reading →

Writer On Holiday

Writer on holiday is  not a natural role for me. I admit it. I’m not good at holidays. We never had them when I was a child and somehow I’ve never really got the knack of it. But sometimes I accompany The Birdwatcher on one of his birding trips. It is a delight.

Well, for me it is a delight. And The Birdwatcher is kind enough to say he enjoys it too, in spite of my not knowing much about either ornithology or birdwatching etiquette.

Holiday Reading

I probably won’t read much but I get uneasy if I haven’t got a book to hand. So I like to take one non-fiction and one novel, both chosen wholly for fun.

Holiday readingThis time my non-fiction was a memoir by Lev Parikian, Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? The author’s situation is the reverse of mine. Basically he knows what he is doing in the matter of puffin-bothering and just fell out of the habit when he grew up. Whereas I have been going along with it for a while, without ever getting much better. He decided that he would take it up again for a year.

His book is a thoughtful and very entertaining saunter through his bird pursuits, memories, music, encounters with experts and much else. It’s a charming journey with delicious laugh-out-loud moments and life-enhancing digressions. Continue reading →