Sunshine

The weather this year has been really unusual. By unusual, I simply mean it doesn’t match very well with my experiences over the course of my lifetime. I might sometimes feel old, but in the scheme of things my lifetime is a very short period of time. I sometimes smile when a news article, or a person talking about the weather, will say it hasn’t been this hot since, and then they’ll name a year perhaps 50 years ago. Sometimes 100 years ago. What strikes me is that in the grandest scale this is a very short period of time and so part of what they’re saying is “it was this hot recently”, “it was this dry recently”, “it was this windy recently” or whatever this new extreme is meant to be.

With these exceptions made the weather has still been really unusual this year. A personal habit, which has often been validated on even the most sunny summer day, is to carry a coat and sometimes even an umbrella regardless of the forecast. I have plenty of memories of weekend day trips with bright sunshine, blue skies, and white fluffy clouds punctuated by snow, hail, and rain. Some of the most amusing days are the ones where you experience every form of weather you can imagine, all in just a few hours. This is one of the fun things about living in the UK and perhaps part of the reason I thought about writing an entry about the weather this morning. It hasn’t felt like living in the UK this year.

I don’t think I got caught in a single summer shower. Goodness, there were several weeks where it just didn’t rain at all, all of the grass died, there was the obligatory hose pipe ban, although that might have something to do with the level of investment in the public water system. In many ways it was really, really, pleasant long warm summer. Evenings when you could go for a walk in T-shirt and shorts without worrying about rain or poor weather. It was also thoroughly weird.

We are almost into October and so I would anticipate autumn might be in full swing. In some ways it is because the days are drawing in and it gets brighter later and later in the morning and then it gets darker earlier and earlier. Sunset where I live will be at 6:36pm today whereas just a few weeks ago it would have been 8 or 9 in the evening this is one of the great things about living at this latitude.

I know some people who live in Dubai and the Emirates and one of the things I hadn’t considered is because they’re much more Equatorial their days are much more consistent in length. So although they have really hot lovely summer days the sun comes up and the sun goes down at around the same time every day of the year. Not so in England.

I do like this time of year, I like the feeling of getting up in the dark before it feels like the day has started properly whereas in the summer when the sun is already up even when you got up very early there is that slight sense part of the day has slipped you by already. I am less keen on the winter, when it’s dark when you get to work and it’s already dark before you leave but I’ll happily accept that in return for the long bright summer evenings.

It rained a little bit last night I can hear some of the dripping of the water outside and I’m relieved; it feels like home.