DISMAL HOLIDAY WEATHER

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22594, 27 December 1938, Page 8

DISMAL HOLIDAY WEATHER

WINTER DAYS IN SUMMER-TIME

WORST CHRISTMAS IN YEARS

Christmas holiday weather this year has been the worst in many seasons. It was wintry enough over the week-end to have been • Christmas on the other side of the world. There was no bathing or idling through long hours of sunshine as there used to be at thu* time of the year in New Zealand. Instead Christmas for many people was spent indoors, with an occasional glance out of the window at new storm clouds coming out ox the horizon. , The open road was very open and very cold. Plans, nevertheless, had been made well in advance, and many famines went away from their homes to spend Christmas out of doors. Many of them travelled this year in motor-caravans or trailers, but there were still hundreds who had a tent canvas as their only shelter. For a while in the earlier part of Christmas Day it appeared as if they were going to enjoy a pleasant holiday, but soon they were hurrying for what cover they had. Camping grounds all over the country were filled with disappointed campers, making the most of their lot. City people, unable to bathe, travelled in fairly large crowds to the beaches and looked at the sea. Considering the weather there was very good support for the Ashburton Trotting Club’s meeting yesterday. Three train-loads of people went there from the city. Comparatively few watched the Plunket Shield cricket match between Canterbury and Auckland, which was the principal sports fixture in the city. Rain interrupted the game on Saturday afternoon and made it impossible to begin play yesterday until well after midday. Traffic on the railways, for which bookings had been made in advance, was heavy. The steamer express service on day and night trips over the week-end carried nearly 4000 persons from Wellington to Lyttelton and about the same number from Lyttelton to Wellington. It was apparent early last week and dismally so over this last weekend that the prospect of celebrating Christmas as it should be celebrated in this part of the world—out of doors and on the beaches—was remote.

Over the last few years it has appeared to those accustomed to going out of doors for Christmas that the summer has gradually retreated into the New Year. This December could .hardly have been more like July than it has been. On Saturday morning there was even a frost of four degrees. With a little snow it would not have besn difficult to believe that this was an English Christmas.