weather

[ewt]

I am delighted by the snow, although it would be nice to have rather more of it - North London seems to have been skipped over a bit. The huge-and-lots flakes coming down last night at Blackheath were a joy.


Yes I said MILD weather. Yes, it is a bit on the cold side, but get some warm clothes on and stop complaining about it already. I have refrained from having this rant so far this year but today I have lost my patience. It really is NOT all that cold outside, and yes it would be great if houses here had effective heating and/or insulation, but they don't. Deal with it. Put on another sweater. Wear your coat inside. Wear gloves inside if you must - mittens if you don't have to type or write (mittens are warmer). Drink endless cups of hot tea/water/chocolate/milk. Get a hot water bottle for crying aloud. Learn that walking to the next stop or indeed for your whole journey is going to be MUCH warmer than waiting for the bus. Wear a hat and gloves and scarf. Wear long underwear and extra socks.

I don't like being cold any more than the next person does, but it seems the correct thing to do when cold in this country is to sit and complain about being cold rather than do something about it. I know some people feel the cold more than others but I don't believe it is impossible to deal with.

It could be much, much worse.

I have gone out to deliver a paper route when it was -30C and windy and come back without getting particularly chilled. I could still feel my toes and fingers. There was ICE on the outside of my scarf and glasses but I still managed to keep warm through wearing a hell of a lot of clothing and keeping moving. I know you don't have as much hi-tech goretex windproof blah blah blah equipment here, but I also know it sure as hell isn't -30C out there. Accuweather tells me it is 2C and feels like -4C (that'd be the windchill factor then, ooh a whole six degrees!). Also, I have not had great trouble acquiring things like long underwear here.

If I see you complain about the cold I also want to see you list all the things you've done to get warm so I can laugh at you. If you've done the stuff I listed behind the cut and you're still cold then you have my sympathies but I reserve the right to think you may be a wimp.

EDIT: *Sigh* I know not all of you do this, but enough do that it bothers me. Perspective, people.

Comments

[claire-smith.livejournal.com]

it seems the correct thing to do when cold in this country is to sit and complain about being cold rather than do something about it

I believe that is the correct response to everything in this country. ;)

I am planning to walk to my aromatherapy class tomorrow if it's too icy to cycle safely, and I have no doubt that I'll be boiling by the time I get there!

[welikegoats.livejournal.com]

It's OK. In a few months we'll be complaining that it's too hot.

[phelyan.livejournal.com]

Yay! You tell 'em, girl!

I think the Brits need more heavy winters so they get used to it...

[ksta.livejournal.com]

i see the weather as really cold when I have to wear tights under my trousers. I refuse to wear tights unless it is that cold.

am currently wearing knee length socks to avoid wearing tights. :)

[karen2205]

I'm only whinging 'cos I've got to be able to get to Wembley tomorrow to sit exams and the transport system has a bad habit of breaking when the temperature isn't between 5-25 degrees Celsius.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's mild. Yes, it's quite tolerable. However, I'd trade this soggy, icy crap for a Canadian winter anytime. I love seeing Canadian drivers go "Oh, it's just a little snow, we get more than this at home, eh?" and then promptly smack into a lamppost because a: Winter Tyres are unobtainable and possibly illegal here (speed ratings et al), and b: dry snow is nothing compared to slush and ice.

But I'm sitting around in a t-shirt. It's not COLD. PEI was cold. And it was mild for Canadian weather apparently.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I have a separate rant for people who try to drive on snow/ice/slush/whatever without proper gear. It's similar to the one for people who think trainers won't slip on the pavement.

What do you think happens to dry snow when lots of cars drive over it? It gets packed into ice, that's what. Also, what do you think happens in the spring when we get the melt/freeze/melt/freeze cycles? Canadians should be well used to driving on slush and ice; the main difference in road conditions is that in Canada we have the infrastructure to plough and grit the roads before it gets too bad. This is no excuse for smacking into lampposts though.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

I've driven on packed ice in Canada. At 160kph. With one set of wheels on tarmac and the other set on ice.

I've also driven in fresh snow.

Proper gear and training makes a huge difference, but Canada is simply not as wet as the UK, period ;)

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

As a non-driver I can't really comment on which driving conditions are more difficult, although I would respectfully suggest that driving 160kph on packed ice is probably just foolhardiness... although not as foolish as trying to brake suddenly in such conditions.

Whether Canada is wetter than the UK depends very much on to which bit of Canada you refer. My original rant, however, was about people complaining about the cold - and I think we both agree on that.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

I was driving a Dodge Durango SUV - AWD and a 4.7 V8. Very safe and secure in those conditions, mostly because it was on the Highway from Toronto to New Brunswick and visibility was excellent. No sudden braking needed because I dropped to 130 or below for anything which might involve outside influences (such as Moose, other cars and the like).

And Ontario and east - I understand the west is pretty soggy, but I doubt it's as wet as the UK.

[pplfichi.livejournal.com]

The UK simply isn't *that* wet. It's all a misconception brought on by whinging Brits. IIRC technically parts of Kent and the like get enough rain to class them as semi arid - it's just that it comes as showers and drizzles instead of sudden downpours which makes it work.

The British like to complain about everything. Cold, hot, wet, dry, trains etc etc. It's a national pastime and one of the many plus points of living here!

And WTF is this snow anyway? There's nothing on the ground and when I've been out it's just been rain. me wants snow!

[edwards.livejournal.com]

The UK isn't just Kent. Scotland is astonishingly wet - perhaps you should compare living here to living in, say, Ontario for a while.

[pplfichi.livejournal.com]

Scotland isn't that wet either - varying from 800-3000mm of rain a year related to topography (Source: the UK met office (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/location/scotland/#rainfall) [metoffice.gov.uk]).

Ontario seems drier, but not *that* much drier then the east coast of Scotland. From: Education Canada (http://educationcanada.com/facts/index.phtml?sid=on&a=1&lang=eng) [educationcanada.com] Northern Ontario's annual precipitation varies from 508 mm along the Hudson Bay coast to 889 mm near North Bay. Southern Ontario averages about 762 mm per year. It would be nice to see somewhere that has rainfall broken down on a monthly basis.

I lived in Manchester for a couple of years. It only gets ~1300mm, the reason why everyone thinks it rains a lot there is because it seems to rain every day, for months on end. The fact that little rain fell doesn't really seem to matter. Scotland is similar in the there is no month where relatively little rain falls.

[yady.livejournal.com]

I cycled on packed snow (only a thin layer, but slippery) a few weeks ago and fell. I have learned from this to take the nonslippery alternative route when available. I have also driven on the stuff (or what little bit of it the Netherlands has sometimes), and found that it's not that hard if you actually pay attention to what you are doing and don't try to race or anything...

[yady.livejournal.com]

It's not that cold! (well, it is about the same weather here as in the UK, I think?) I remember it being -18 degrees only a few years ago, that's when people have a right to complain ;)

I get cold hands when cycling. I consider this perfectly normal this time of year. I do not like wearing gloves, but I consider that my own choice ;)

The heating in my house would not heat up the place properly. My housemate appears to have fixed this by fiddling the settings of the central heater thingie, so that should no longer be an issue either.

Anyway, you are perfectly right - many people here are dealing with the weather fine, but some do keep complaining and not doing anything. Which is a bit annoying regardless of the subject...

[androktone.livejournal.com]

i love cold weather - much nicer than hot weather :)

[cabd.livejournal.com]

Of course, you're missing something about being British. We don't only complain about the cold. We complain when it's too wet, too dry, too windy, too still, too hot, too cold, too foggy, too clear, and we complain most of all when the weather is variable (which, in an essentially maritime climate on an islans our size, is most of the time). It isn't about the wether, it's about complaining about the weather, a national passtime. Don't assume that it means we're soft, it just means we're British.

[nslm.livejournal.com]

The UK hasn't felt quite the same since I encountered a Russian winter, icicles inside the Bus! :)

One thing I will however say is that continental cold weather doesn't feel as bad (even at -15) as it can do over here, the damp cold feels so much worse.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

My point exactly. It's a hell of a lot easier to cope with cold if it's not dry (though the severe cold can do serious harm to you because you notice it less...)

[edwards.livejournal.com]

Doh, I mean, if it's dry. Of course.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Although I've never been to Great Britian, I understand from my perusal of history, the literature, and talking to expatirate Brits that the British are miserable when nothing REALLY bad happens, and quite cheerful and together when something terrible DOES happen. In other words, if you actually had a devistating blizzard, everyone would be quite competent and reasonable about it. It's only piddling little stuff that bothers folks.

[561.livejournal.com]

I would just like to note that complaining is what holds this country together and more than that is an important part of how we communicate with each other... what we complain about is inconsequential. I could say the same back to you: Deal with it. ;)

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

If that's the case then I could reply that I'm just trying to fit in...

[561.livejournal.com]

Yep :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

In the last week I have eaten as much carbohydrate as I possibly could without throwing up from overeating, when I go outside I am wearing thermal trousers under jeans, four layers of top clothing one of which is windproof and another of which is a thermal vest, two pairs of gloves, a fleece hat and two pairs of socks. I am now sitting here in all these things except the hat and the windbreaker, next to a radiator, under a duvet.

My fingers and toes are still blue, painful and swollen and I'm still short of breath. I've been complaining for the past three days about this and frankly I'm not going to stop, any more than the children who used to steal all my outdoor clothing and the teachers who sent an underweight child out in shirt sleeves in snow were going to stop just because of a tiny thing like Raynaud's syndrome.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

I agree on the breathing thing. Currently at home I spend the day snuggled under a thick duvet, a fleece blanket and the quilt Jude made me, dressed in 2 t-shirts, tights, 2 pairs of socks, thick jeans and a fleece hoodie. When I go out I add a fleece jumper and a pair of leggings under the jeans, and make sure I'm wearing a hat. (Alas, the cat peed on my lovely 8' long scarf so at present I am scarfless, and damned if I know where my gloves are - but that's what pockets are for.) I know to breathe in and out through my nose, not my mouth. This still does not stop the cold air causing an asthma attack each time I spend more than ten minutes or so outside. They're only mild attacks, but an annoyance nonetheless.

[qadira.livejournal.com]

I've lived in several places that I remember (I've lived in a few as an infant that I don't) and cold + not humid feels much less cold than cold + humid.

Either way, I may bitch & moan about it being cold or hot, but in reality that is only bitching about the temperature as compared to the recent temperature.

I live in Montana, and have for years, and winter here means 20 or 30 degrees below the point of freezing for many of the days and many more of the nights. This winter has been unusually warm, hovering around the freezing point or *gasp* warming up to no-jacket weather.

I do agree about people talking about *cold* as though a wee bit of frozen water is akin to the Antarctic wastelands. I complain, but I also realize it is much much worse other places, say, Alaska, where the daytime temps can sit at -70 F (I don't remember if that is with or without windchill, but at that temp, who cares)

I'd rather have a season of cold, much as I might bitch about freezing all winter, and fewer creepy crawly bugs in the summer. I've seen those documentaries on the insect life in tropical climes. ewwww

[elmyra.livejournal.com]

LOL! It's a good rant. After my driving test tomorrow, I shall join in your prayers for proper snow. ;-)

[pasdeschiens.livejournal.com]

It's been 35+C here for the past few days. Today is a "welcome relief" at 27ish. Oh, and muggy as hell (except that I imagine, with all the fire and brimstone, that Hell would actually be a dry heat - I digress).

The only gripe I really have is that I can't seem to get the stickiness off me (if I were home more often I would shower more often and that would be fine), and that because of the heat I can't tell what of my current health issues are actually wrong things, and what are "It's 37 degrees and you want me to walk? Uh, no." things.

...so I'm drinking a lot of water, and it's not too bad, I'm spending most of my time in over-airconditioned classrooms (also probably not helping the health issues) and I keep waking up in the middle of the night, either too hot (with blanket), too cold (without blanket), or ...needing to deal with the endless bottles of water I've been guzzling. ;)

I'm lucky. I'm "used to the cold" (where "the cold" = 3C overnight) because of where I grew up. And yes, I'd prefer that to this. At least you can put on more layers. Once you've taken everything off and you're still hot, you're in a spot of bother.
(For winter, here, I need to work out a route to school that involves a tad less open spaces to avoid the rain. Not that rain is bad, but sitting in wet clothes automatically defeats many keep-warm techniques.)