When I used to be a keen climber, through my early 20's and 30's, I can remember the anticipation, dusting off ice and crampons for a winter climbing season in the Lake District.  This was a regular feature of our climbing year, with a frosty November giving some great water ice conditions.  Regular as clockwork.  Every year.  Gradually this certainty disappeared, until good winter climbing conditions south of the Border became a rarity.

Don't mention the Floods......

Residents of Carlisle might be a little more receptive than most UK residents to enter into a serious discussion about the effects of climate change, having seen their city devastated by floods in 2005, and I write this blog post from a house in Threlkeld, surrounded by rising waters, with all 3 routes to Carlisle under 3 feet of water.  My ageing in-laws have just been evacuated from their home; wading through waist-deep water.  Fast-flowing too.

On the drive here last night, I picked up a copy of the News & Star, with a front page article on the scrapping of the Lowther Show - a major 3 day event, attracting over 40,000 people, and generating a 6 figure sum to charities since it's inception.  The event was cancelled last year due to heavy rain, and the decision to scrap the show cites changing weather patterns as one of the main factors.  In a similar vein, the Cumberland Show, usually held in Rickerby Park, on the banks of the River Eden was cancelled last year due to flooding, and will be held next year on the higher ground of Carlisle Racecourse.

In May this year, our Government commissioned a report on climate change which warned that the world has less than a decade to global limit warming to less than two degrees - and less time than that to design the institutions of the post-carbon age.  This warning from a website sponsored by Shell!  Of course there's the opposite side of this emotive argument, with loads of stuff from the Greens, and each side quoting their own preferred reports and scientists, but somewhere, in the middle of all this, I have an image of Heather's dad - now frail and confused, and up to his waist in cold muddy water, in the worst regional floods ever.