SNOW FLURRIES

Two or three snow flurries today. It’s an odd feeling watching the flakes tumble past the window. Last week was warm and bright, next week I’m getting married in a garden, and today - winter.

I spoke to a colleague named Nihad, who’s from Bosnia. He’s what you might call an anglophile, so he was very keen to hear about the London Underground, about the countryside, and whether Dorset was as lovely as the TV show Broadchurch had persuaded him it is. Embarrassingly, beyond the topics of Sarajevo as the host of the 1984 Winter Olympics and the Yugoslav war of the 1990s, I was low on my knowledge of Bosnia. I wasn’t even sure what to ask. Nonetheless I was keen for Nihad to tell me more.

“You’d like it, I think, Matt,” said he, in unbroken English.

“Does Bosnia have… does it have a coastline?” I said, half-remembering it might squeeze onto the Adriatic for a few miles. He told me it does - a little - and a lot of beautiful countryside of mountains and hills and forests. I can quite believe it. I suddenly had an itch for adventure.

The snow had stopped by the end of the conversation and the sun had come out. The flurry had barely been worth mentioning I guess, but… it just so happens I am relentlessly British - and so I had. I explained to Nihad how quickly the weather can change here, how if he were ever to visit, packing would be difficult, and how English people think very little of carrying scarves and suncream, sun glasses and woolly hats at pretty much any time of the year.

It makes planning for an outdoor wedding quite a challenge.