If only we all had the forecasting magic touch possessed by the organisers of MoFest.
Rain spattered sausages on the barbie would be a thing of the past, there’d be no need to decamp indoors in the race to beat the haar rolling in and the party vibe would live long into the balmy night.
Almost before the last electric guitar is unplugged, the dedicated MoFest team get to work on the next year’s programme, leaving no detail out in their determination to keep Montrose as an end-of-May must-visit festival.
And this past weekend that hard work duly was once again duly rewarded by the weather gods in regard to the single thing outwith their control.
Since the first chord was struck in 2008 it could be said that the only foot the organisers have put wrong was the decision to stock up on rain ponchos rather than MoFest branded sun cream – each year beating the odds which say Scotland’s early summer will revert to traditional form.
If only our roads chiefs had the same climatic crystal ball.
Unfortunately they – and the rest of the UK – felt the full force of that late February inconvenience named the Beast from the East.
In some respects, Angus’s east coast location spared it from the full force white hell endured elsewhere, but we’ve not escaped the cost of dealing with it.
And, much like negotiating an icy path, for those holding the Angus purse strings, the winter past proved a case of one step forward and two back.
Not for a decade and a half had Angus witnessed fresh snowfall on as many days as the 2017/18 season, and the sub-zero temperatures led to record outings for gritter crews – sometimes having to repeat runs on roads already covered because rain had washed the sale away before freezing again.
It’s all amounted to an £800,000 financial headache after the winter maintenance bill rocketed from its £2.7 million budgeted figure to somewhere in the frozen north beyond £3.5 million.
Already the cold, harsh reality of local government finance has forced Angus to take the decision to slash its pavement gritter fleet by half for the winter ahead – with no guarantee that the Beast’s bigger brother might not be lurking on the winter horizon.
