MONDAY
THE American man had wild, anxious eyes. The otherwise excellent guest- house at which he and his wife were staying didn't know where you phoned to find out about the weather. Could I help him?
I could, and with pleasure.
I told him he didn't need to phone anyone about the weather: it would be sunny with showers and showery with sunny intervals. I beamed at a job well done.
This didn't suit him one bit: he was grateful, of course, for my courtesy and my guess, he said - but what he would really like was the telephone number of the official government weather information centre, such as every country had: it was the norm, wasn't it? When you arrive anywhere, you cheek your valuables into a safe and call the weather people.
I found a number for him in the paper, and together we selected the prefix that narrowed the information down to the Greater Dublin area.
"Is that official weather?" he asked.
I said that since it came from Met Eireann we shouldn't think it was a mere cowboy outfit where somebody was just guessing to make you pay 58 pence a minute, which I noticed it cost. I thought the service would have all the power of the State behind it to guess about the weather for him. And so he dialled it and it told him the showers would die out and there would be sunny intervals and then there would be cloudy periods with patches of drizzle. He repeated it to me dutifully as a reward for my own efforts.
I had said exactly the same thing to him, and it had cost him nothing. Anyone who lives here would have said the same thing. But he had heard it officially and he was happy. He would suggest his wife should take her rainhat and he would take a folding umbrella. He stalked out into the day, a confident man armed with official information.
TUESDAY
THE French woman was happy to see the rain. She remembered that advertisement years- and years ago when they had said that Irlande was not the Mediterranean, and then the ad said "Dieu, merci".
She thought it was wonderful to come here: the soft fresh rain, it was so good for the face. You just wore a proper turban and raised your visage up to it, and it was like going to a beauty salon.
And why did people keep apologising to her for it? Had she wanted only sunshine, she knew where to go to look for it.
WEDNESDAY
THERE was a dinner friends went to, down in Temple Bar mature people. people like myself, not in the first flush of anything. Anyway, they came out of the restaurant and saw in the pouring rain the crowds moving cheerfully to and fro, great heaving masses of people talking casually, some of them soaked to the skin, others wearing raincoats, smiling, chatting, pausing and greeting fellow-walkers outside other drinking establishments and clubs. One of my friends thought they would all get pneumonia or rust but it didn't seem to bother any of them at all.
THURSDAY
THE receptionist said she never mentions the weather at all to visitors. She says it's like apologising for the shape of people's faces or saying she's sorry we don't have ice-hockey or volcanoes for people to see. They know it rains here, for heaven's sake. This fact wasn't hidden from them when they booked. No point in starting off each day with regret and gloom.
Instead, she points them to the Writer's Museum, the Joyce Centre, the Shaw birthplace, the Dublin Viking Adventure - all of them under cover on days when the heavens open. They have a list of shops and pubs and cathedrals and happenings, and any one of them who came to Ireland for a sun-tan in the first place should be redirected to the funny farm.
FRIDAY
AN English visitor said approvingly that he rang up the tourist office here to know could they promise him a good day if he had his daughter's wedding in Ireland. They told him they could promise him a great day but they had no control at all over the weather. He took this as honest and sensible and is making the arrangements.
At Dublin Tourism they say the weather never comes up on the list of complaints they hear from visitors. It's as if everyone takes it for granted. The research has shown it literally isn't a factor in whether people enjoy their holidays. They say they never use good weather as some kind of a carrot to attract people, and don't use advertising pictures of people being dazzled by our big yellow sun on umbrella-studded beaches. Whatever brings people to Dublin, and to a large extent to the rest of the country, it is not the wish to crisp-up in our sub-tropical climate.
And we all know that, though people used to bleat a lot about the weather, nowadays we are able to take it much more in our stride. It is not going to transform anything that is dull into something magic nor destroy something that is already wonderful.
I SUPPOSE I am saying that with all my heart today to a young couple out looking at the sky for information about next Saturday. For all I know they may already be telephoning Met Eireann and hearing at great expense that it will be sunshine and showers. What they should know is that all of us who are going to their wedding are people who have chosen to live in a land without arctic and desert extremes but with the consequent uncertainty about which of the two positions, shower or sun, will be uppermost at any time. And as we all head out a week from today for Elena and Tom's marriage, the last thing on anyone's mind will be the weather.