The British Summer

[poliphilo]

It carries on raining. I'm not complaining, just observing. Rain is what you sign up for when you agree be born in Britain. It's why the countryside is green not brown. The rain may be heavier than usual this year but let's not pretend it's an aberration.  We like to tell ourselves things were better when we were young, but they weren't. When I was a kid we used to take jig-saw puzzles with us on our seaside holidays because we could count on there being days when we wouldn't want to set foot outside. If we did venture down to the beach we wore things called windcheaters; the name speaks for itself.

Really sunny summers- like the summer of '76- stand out because they were extraordinary. The Edwardians may have enjoyed golden summers, but we mid-century people rarely did. 

The gastropods like these conditions. When I go out in the morning I have to pick my way carefully to avoid treading on them. I put out lettuce for the rabbits to eat and the slugs swarm all over it. 

Comments

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

It would be so nice if you could send us some of your rain. The grass is browner than I've ever seen it. But, oh well. The weather is one of the things we just can't change no matter how we try.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Our rain is all down the the Jet Stream moving South. Perhaps your drought has the same cause.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Seattle is on the north west coast of your continent. Britain is on the north west coast of ours.

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

It is going to start being good this weekend.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Today hasn't been at all bad.

[veronikos.livejournal.com]

I have similar recall. Every time it hits 95 degrees in my city, people go crazy with global warming rants. I remember many, many late springs and early summers of my youth (say, early 80s), however, where temperatures hit 100.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

People tend to sugar coat the past. It was very often not as they remember it.

[sovay]

Rain is what you sign up for when you agree to be born in Britain.

Nice.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We moan about our weather but it has a lot to be said for it- variety for one thing.