Normal or average?

 This year has been really strange as regards the weather. In the Spring we had early hot weather more like July, with almost no rain. The grass went brown in our cour as it usually does later in the summer and everyone was talking of the secheresse or drought. Temperatures were up to 10 degrees over the normal, or average for that time of year.
  Then the summer arrived, when it is normal in Deux Sevres for the days to be hot and dry. What happened this year?  We had cooler temperatures, up to ten degrees under the average and frequent rain showers. The cour has gone back to green, the sheep have more grass than they can eat and nobody is talking drought anymore. I have to mow the cour and strim the orchard weekly, unheard of here after June.

 The point I am trying to make is that this year will go down in statistical records as being an AVERAGE year!  Taken on average the temperatures will approximate to the normal for the Spring and Summer, the rainfall likewise. All this without for a moment being a NORMAL year. An American once said that `there are lies, damn lies and statistics` and never was a truer word spoken.
  What this weather pattern proves in the argument over global warming or cooling is for wiser heads than mine to ponder. Perhaps the only lesson one can draw is that things will average out in the end if you wait long enough!

               Bye for now!