COLD CALLER

It's a lazy wind, they sometimes say. It goes right through you.
This isn't.
Since Easter, the time of easterly winds, we have a had a huge contrary blow. It started as a westerly and has gone southwesterly and southerly, as the days have gone on, trying out its different angles on us.
It isn't lazy.
It is hard working wind. Persistent. Diligent, even. It uses its best endeavours on its way. It leaves no stone unturned, no opportunity missed.It's the kind of wind that is on commission, blowing your door forcefully open, in a timeshare selling gale of patter. It's a sharp suited, spiv wind from the south. It's a villainous wind (a word invented by country folk to describe those quick talkers from the City). It's the sort of intense, NLP educated salesman I have never wanted to be. It does all the talking, and none of the listening, constantly, continuously. It wears you down, till resistance is eroded. It asks you questions only because it already knows the objection busting answers.Though not of itself a cold airflow, you can't trust the genuineness of its warmth. You know it's put on. Its force is chilling. It's a cold calling.

Last night, all night, it was doing its work, creating a howling in the rafters, a deep hum which was an experience against which to fall asleep. The Missus couldn't, troubled by its high pressure technique. A pitch inescapable to her, though, thankfully didn't trouble my slumber. Hand grenades wouldn't.  Mine is the sleep of the just, I tell people.

Around 0515, at dawn, it eased off its rant and chatter, though only temporarily, as though it had gone to fetch a few more back up copies of the timeshare brochures, which would be needed later.

Blackbird broadcast his resistance song - and, was it just me, or was the song different from usual? Down, up up, down rather than the normal fluting crescendos. As though this was his gloomy weather forecast.

"Morning neighbours, Blackbird FM. Depressing news, feathered friends. Not spring yet, so don't get excited. No. Just another weather warning. It's that southerly again, knockin' down your door. Another day of staying put and putting up with it. Only going out if you're heading north! Take off to south east, and turn left sharpish. Ensure you're clear to leeward, 'cos it's a blow! Oh, and goggles on. It's dusty out there"

This morning the wind's results were to be seen in the brown haze covering the Vale - topsoil blown from off the fields. A haboob, in rural England. Going the few miles north, where Foggathorpe clay gives way to lighter loam and even less resistant sand, towards Bielby and Hayton, drifts have formed against hedges and across lanes, giving a drive to Pocklington the frisson of excitement of going to the seaside, cued by these false dunes.

False promise. That's what it all is. The wind's direction promises a spring yet to come. It's intensity blows away that promise by overselling it, leaving you thinking:
."..... those promised benefits, that idyll, those rather too good to be true returns...... mmm. Maybe discretion is the better part of valour? Did he mention that the value of your investment can fall as well as rise? I didn't actually sign, did I?"