We talk about them. We plan our lives around them. The changing seasons
are part of us all. But what happens when the weather changes beyond
recognition?
Joe Shute has spent years unpicking Britain's love affair with the
weather, poring over the centuries of folklore, customs and rituals our
seasons have inspired.
But in recent years Shute has noticed a curious thing: the British
seasons are changing far faster and far more profoundly than we realise.
Daffodils in December, frogspawn in November, swallows that no longer
fly home, floods, wildfires and winters without snow. Nothing is
behaving as it should, sending nature into an increasing state of flux.
In Forecast, Shute travels all over Britain tracing the history of the
seasons, and discovering the extent to which we are now growing
disconnected from them. While documenting these warped rhythms caused by
the changing weather, he records the parallels in his personal journey
as he and his wife struggle to conceive a child.
This is a book that races to keep up with the march of the seasons as
they rapidly change course. It examines how the weather is reshaping the
world around us, and asks what happens to centuries of culture, memory
and identity when the very thing they subsist on is slipping away.
