Blog: It’s hard to know what to expect of the weather lately, isn’t it? We’ve just emerged from the Arctic blast of deep mid-winter and barely had time to brush the snow off our boots before the storms arrived with howling winds and torrential rain.

I’ve spent far too much time lately either huddled over boiler pipes with kettles of boiling water or huddled in my conservatory listening to the wind trying to take the roof off.

I’ve never known such a run of bad weather, but I’ve tried to keep calm and carry on, remembering that, as a nation we do love a bit of a moan.

But having spoken to folk who have lived up my way for generations and who assure me they have never seen weather like this before, one has to wonder what is going on in the old weather department.

Is it all our own fault with our cars and our aerosols and such? Or is it an entirely normal, if coincidental, change in weather patterns? After all, the dinosaurs can hardly be held responsible for causing the catastrophic Ice Age but it still wiped them out&

Answers on a postcard please, because I’m afraid no-one really knows! So if you were hoping for a definitive answer, you won’t find one here . . . or anywhere else for that matter. it’s an ongoing argument for the experts.

Personally, I’d like to believe our increasingly unpredictable weather patterns are down to a normal change in weather trends and that we’re just being hysterical humans about it. Because that would be preferable by far to the alternative – knowing we have caused this sorry state-of-affairs all on our own – though sadly, I think that’s nearer the truth.

When I bought my bungalow in a small village in mid-Wales, it turned out to be located slap, bang in the middle of a flood plain. With flooding extensive in recent years, I was worried but was reassured that although the area is listed as a flood plain, it has never actually flooded in living memory.

All of which gave me little comfort during last week’s howling rainstorms, as I watched the river that runs through the fields behind our houses, burst its banks and creep with alarming speed, for the very first time ever, over the grass towards us. We were lucky this time and got away with a scary near-miss – locals say it’s the first time they’ve seen the river so high but I’m not sure it will be the last.

So whatever next? Will March turn out to be hurricane month? Will Spring bring a tropical heat-wave? Because, let’s be honest, after the winter we’ve had, a spot of extreme sunshine doesn’t sound half bad no matter what’s causing it – or am I not allowed to say that?!