Bramham: Weather or not to go out? COVID’s made me a climate consumer

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Since COVID, I’ve started studying the weather app with the intensity of an explorer searching for the Holy Grail or a Saskatchewan farmer poring through the almanac for a sign that this will be a good year.

My social life and sanity depend on it.

Desperate for contact unmediated by an app that requires a classroom-like discipline to keep everyone from talking at once, I’m on an endless quest for sun days.

Not Sundays, but days dry enough for a socially distanced walk or warm enough to try for a spot on a patio or plan a picnic.

How about Tuesday? A friend will ask. No, won’t work. There’s more than a 70-per-cent chance of rain (which is kind of my comfort threshold for walking. But I’m convince-able.)

OK, so what about Saturday? Sorry, I’ve already booked for a walk. Thursday? 40-per-cent chance of rain? OK. But ping me in the morning.

Well, what about today? The sun’s shining even though it’s a bit windy.

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Experience has given me a huge appreciation for the precision of modern weather forecasting. More than once, when I’ve dawdled the rain has started falling within minutes of the forecast hour.

What I’m still trying to work out, though, is what exactly does 10 degrees feels like as opposed to 14. Figuring that out would help in my ongoing Goldilocks’ search for the just-right combination of layers to wear or carry in the now-essential backpack.

Extra sweater or jacket? Hat? Gloves? Sunscreen? Umbrella? Whatever. It all gets added after I’ve run though the essentials list. Mask? Check. Sanitizer? Check. Phone to capture the moments and the number of steps? Yup.

“Usable” days through the fall, winter and early spring have added up to a greater appreciation for nature. (Yes, reluctantly, even that fat, naughty grey squirrel who keeps digging up my recently planted begonias to recover pinecones buried last fall.)

But I’m an urban person. I crave more than nature. I’ve missed the bustle of strangers and serendipity of running into acquaintances.

Which is why I shivered last Friday in my three layers on a shaded, Denman Street patio for the sheer joy of sharing a meal with friends and watching the parade of characters walking by.

There was a woman with the fluorescent green cowboy boots and matching glasses. A man in a green turban, tie-dyed T-shirts and matching mask. There was a pair of motorcyclists with teddy bear hoods over their helmets. A yellow, vintage Lincoln Continental so long that it barely was able to negotiate the corner and a classic Caddy with fins.

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It. Seemed. So. Normal.

Which is why against my better judgment, I was convinced to move farther up the street to a sunny spot and have an ice cream. Yes, ice cream followed by a walk along English Bay past lineups for patio spots, happily gawking at picnicking groups of families and friends who were (mostly) socially distancing on the beach and the lawns.

If there was anything tangible in the air, it was a sense of relief that we could all be there even as the temperature dipped and down vests were being pulled over sunburnt arms.

On Sunday, I received a welcome announcement from a friend.

After consulting the weekly forecast, Moby was reopening with reservations now being accepted with the recommended times all before dusk.

Moby is her large, sun-drenched deck where we celebrated birthdays and occasions and had appropriately distanced visits all through the first pandemic summer and into the COVID fall.

Weather has kept us mostly apart since then.

Behind all my weather watching, there’s also been an underlying desperation.

Other than on FaceTime, I’ve not seen my 92-year-old mother since September. She’s been locked down since October, and I say that gratefully since it’s kept her and all their other residents and staff at her Regina care home safe.

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Anxious for the day that outdoor visits could resume, I’ve tracked the temperatures as avidly as rising-falling-rising-and-falling-again COVID cases and the steady incline of the vaccination rates.

Every day when I talk to her, Mom looks out the window as we talk and gives me the daily weather reports of early-season snow, late-season snow and now people wearing only T-shirts as they walk their dogs.

Fully vaccinated, she’s anxious for visitors. Outdoor visits resumed this Monday with a forecast high this week of 18 degrees.

The announcement was followed by a reality check that we are still in the midst of a pandemic.

I can’t visit.

British Columbians aren’t supposed to do any non-essential travel and Regina’s case counts are so high that the city itself remains off limits to visitors.

But soon — if people follow the rules, if they get their vaccinations — I won’t even care what the forecast is. I’ll be rearranging everything to get there even if it’s only for a couple of shivery, short visits on the patio.

dbramham@postmedia.com

twitter.com/bramham_daphne

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