He recalls recently standing on an exposed promontory on the Isle of Skye, for example, his teenage kids at his side, the weather “blowing a hoolie”. As adults, reckons the nature writer and secondary school teacher, weather gives us the opportunity to indulge our primal instinct for play. For this self-confessed aficionado of gnarly weather, rainstorms have him reaching for the latch. Weather, in contrast, offers a way to reconnect, “which does wonders for our body and our soul”. As Gaw wryly observes, Brits would much rather talk about the weather, than experience it.