Twin Sister Lettie looked up from her given task of filling four huge brown teapots, and scanned the magnificent, uniformly azure canvas above their heads.

‘I think you may be mistaken dear’ 

Hettie sighed, ‘Look again little sister’

Lettie, who had earned the soubriquet ‘little’ by virtue of being born a mere seventeen minutes after Hettie, craned her neck, turned a full 360 degrees, and was about to repeat her previous statement when she spotted a small feathery blemish floating harmlessly above the spot where Scurvy the Pirate, (Confectioner Milton Geoffrey), was nailing the Slogan ‘Yo ho ho and premature tetracycline stains’ above his Brightly-Coloured Sweetie stall.

Lettie chuckled, ‘Oh really Sister, that little chap wont give us any trouble’

‘That ‘little chap’, Hettie explained patiently, ‘is a cirrus, and you should never trust a cirrus – they are the deceptively meek offspring of the cumulonimbus. If you see one out on its own, you can be pretty sure that its not-so-meek parents will soon come looking for it, and before you know it the whole extended family has arrived!’

‘An extended family of clouds?!’ Lettie laughed, ‘that’s fanciful even for you Henrietta!’

‘Oh!  I’m being fanciful am I? Well, Little Sister, maybe you will be less likely to scoff after you hear what happened to me last night...
I was just getting ready for bed when there was an urgent rapping on the front door.
‘Funny’, I thought, so I opened it very cautiously, and who should I find on the step looking as white as a sheet?…Maisie Wittering!
‘Good Heavens Maisie..’ I said, ‘..whatever’s the matter?’
‘Oh Hettie, I have some dreadful news, simply dreadful…’, she spluttered
‘You’d better come in dear’ I led her to the best chair and put on a strong pot of the Afghan Bracer.
‘There you are Maisie…’, I said, easing the saucer between her trembling fingers, ‘…now why don’t you tell me all about it’
She took a sip and composed herself a little, ‘I...I don’t know how to tell you this Henrietta, it’s the bladderwrack, it’s…moist!!’
‘Oh is that all dear?’, I said, ‘From the way you were talking I thought someone had d…’
‘No no no! You don’t understand Hettie, it should always be dry and brittle at this time of year, even crispy, but never…moist! Don’t you see what this means?
‘No dear..’ I said ‘..do tell me’
‘The carnival’s going to be a wash-out! The floats will be ruined, the stalls will be blown away in the howling gales… there may even be one of those twister things that I read about in Dr Stone’s waiting room!’
She was getting herself into a right old state, so I poured her a second cup, stirred in a handful of  fungal twigs and tried to make light of it… ‘I’m sure you’re mistaken dear, and anyway, we havn’t had a drop of rain on carnival day since 1881’, but she wouldn’t have it, just kept wringing her hands and insisting, ‘the seaweed never lies!’
In the end she made me promise to consult my breakfast leaves, that was what I was doing when you arrived this morning; I had my usual cup of Robust Roger, swirled the dregs into the saucer, and wouldn’t you know it – the leaves formed into an inverted cluster to the left of the handle!’

Hettie looked up to gauge her Sister’s reaction to this momentous news and was not impressed by Lettie’s empty expression…

‘You don’t remember what an inverted cluster to the left of the handle indicates do you? Oh honestly Lettie, have you forgotten everything I taught you?!’ She reached into a string shopping bag and produced a huge, dark leather-bound copy of “Pinochet’s lore of Tassiography”, flicked directly to the desired page and read aloud…
“…an inverted cluster to the left of the handle symbolises a sustained period of stormy and inclement weather. Alternatively, this pattern can be interpreted as predicting a dispute with a neighbour over the ownership of an oat-dibbing stick” 

 ‘So there you have it’, Hettie closed and tapped the book ‘You cant argue with Pinochet! Oh, and just in case you do not consider an inverted cluster, the appearance of a cirrus, and some inexplicably supple seaweed to be sufficient proof of the deluge that we are going to encounter, then let me remind you that all but one of Mr Pigs’ Shorthorn Devonshires were lying down as we cycled past his big field this morning!

‘Maybe they were just hot’, Lettie muttered mischievously into the pot

(to be continued)