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Chilly Mornings Are Returning

Blog Date - 26 September 2011

It never feels like we've had a summer.  We seem to mistakenly believe that we should receive 3 solid months of warm dry and sunny weather.  We all remember when we were younger how every day was spent walking round in shorts, everyone's skin turned pink and ice creams melted far faster than you could eat them.  Well that is all rose tinted glasses.  Those memories are a collection of the best snapshots of the warm bits of the many summers of your life.  In reality summer in the UK is warm and grey as opposed to cold and grey.  We've had a few hot days this summer, we've not done too badly.

This morning when the alarm went off at 0630 I did not want to get up.  It was still dark, that's always the worst part.  When I finally dragged myself out of my pit I noticed a cold tinge in the air.  Not enough to make me shiver but enough to tell me the summer is officially over.  After breakfast and brushing my teeth I set out on the bike to work.  Definitely a nip in the air.  In the valley there were patches of mist rolling in from the fields.  I wanted to pull my jacket up around my kneck.  I felt like I wanted a thinker jumper on.  It wasn't the cold of deepest darkest January, not the biting painful runny nose shivery cold of an icy February.  

So that's it.  The forecast this week is for glorious weather, 25 degrees and scorching sunshine, but it isn't going to be the deep warmth that only summertime can offer.  I know the thermometer may rise somewhat but I just know that it'll be fleeting warmth.  The mornings will be cool and the evenings are already dark before they should be.  We're officially into Autumn now and all that I can look forward to is shorter days, hard frosts and icy roads where every bend is a scary adventure in itself.  

It's not that I hate winter.  It's just that it's too long.  I love the seasons.  I love the ever changing patterns and the way the landscape alters as the year rolls by.  The hard icy challenge of deep winter, the beauty of the frosted forests, then zest of spring and the first days of warm sun, the green of summer, camping and not being cold then autumns golden leaves and howling gales.  I'd hate to live in a country where the weather's always the same, even if that weather is good weather.  I just wish winter could come and go in a month.  A month is more than long enough to appreciate the snow, to enjoy snuggling up for warmth and to marvel at the ice that forms on my bike jacket.  But 3 months, maybe more, of winter is too much.  I don't need that much, after a month it becomes boring, wearing so many layers that I can hardly move.

A month of cold is enough to make me appreciate that the weather is not always that bad in this country.  I don't need it drilled into me for any longer than that.  Imagine if winter lasted a month, just over Christmas and the new year.  Then sometime in mid January it would start to warm up again.  By March spring would be in full bloom and summer could run from say April until October.  That would work.  It seems we can see to the edge of the universe, split electrons into quarks and neutrinos and plumb the depths of our oceans, but we can still do bugger all about the weather.

Reader's Comments

Stephen Latchford said :-
Im nearly fifty now, and getting thoroughly hacked off with the clocks going back every October and being in the dark when I go to work and also when I come home from work, so I thought this year just so I could have a little bit of light when I need it, ie evening at around finishing time before tea I shall try going out of sync with everyone and leaving my watch set as it is, only trouble with this idea as far as I can see is that 1, I will have to leave the house first an hour earlier than wifey/daughters 2, have my dinner an hour late so I can hang out and chat with work mates 3, go to bed an hour earlier than wifey/daughters.Stubborn bloke me!
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC

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