April, April, der macht was er will.

At the beginning of last week, although the temperature was supposed to be a mere 8 degrees Celsius above freezing point, I was nevertheless able to sun myself on my balcony as of 8 o'clock in the morning. My balcony is a veritable sun trap in the morning and I need to tank up on vitamin D as I am still way below the minimum threshold.

Then we had the Easter weekend and what usually happens on a public holiday happened on all four days of the extended weekend: the temperatures plummeted and the weather became overcast.

Yesterday, Easter Monday, was a superb example of public holiday weather: we started off with merely overcast skies and progressed throughout the day from light rain to snow to hailstones to bright sunshine with blue skies and back again to snow and hailstones.

I always feel sorry for schoolchildren when the weather turns like this. On a day when they can go out and enjoy the countryside and parks with their parents, they have to remain cooped up at home.

April, April, der macht was er will is a German country saying and translates literally as "April, April, it does what it wants". 

"April, April", however, is also what a German prankster shouts triumphantly when someone has fallen for their April Fool's joke. The English equivalent would simply be "April Fool!"

I feel, therefore, that the weather was playing a very late April Fool's joke on us yesterday by keeping us guessing what would come next. When the sun came out in the afternoon, I'm sure a lot of people though that the worst was over and they went out to enjoy the sunshine. More fool them.