Search Results for: british weather

I stayed home today, so that Natasha could attend a PTA meeting at Becky's school in the early afternoon. Whenever I stay home, I normally take Kimmy to school and pick her up, a happy responsibility that evades me on a regular day. This morning, at 8:45am, as we were driving to Kimmy's school, the weather was as dismal as it comes: Strong winds, leaden skies, driving rain. At around 10, though, as I looked out the window, the rain stopped, the skies cleared, and the sun was shining brightly. By noon, the gray skies returned and it was raining again... By 3pm, when it was time for me to drive to the school to pick Kimmy up, it was bright and sunny again... At 3:07pm, as I was standing in the schoolyard, waiting for children to come out, someone upstairs flipped a switch, the skies changed color as if…

The weather turned truly nasty for a couple of days. Nasty with a twist. Mockingly, around 7pm every day, the skies clear, the sun comes out, and our hearts fill up with hopes of nice tomorrow. Alas, the mornings leave a lot to be desired... We were at the marvelous Leeds Castle, in Kent, on Sunday, and the rain kept coming and going. Thankfully, when it finally decided to really have a go, we were already on our way to the tents housing the local food and wine festival. After an hour or so of browsing stalls and sampling various foods, we outlasted the rain. The skies kept getting brighter on our way back home, and then the weather turned nice enough so that we contemplated having dinner out on the deck. We even played football with the kids a little bit on the garden lawn. And then next morning…

Leaden skies, low temperatures, long intervals of drizzling rain, intermittent gusts of cold wind. I could be talking about your boilerplate British weather of late autumn. In fact, it was the weather that accompanied our weekend in Paris. As if that matters! We love Paris too much to let such trifling circumstance as uncooperative weather detract from our enjoyment. And enjoy it we did, with walks along routes both seen and unseen before, a couple of museum stops, and plenty of good food and drink. Our hotel room, on a quiet street near Marché-St-Honoré, - a location as central to Paris sightseeing as I can think of - saw us for barely more than the eight hours of sleep. The rest of the 30 hours between our arrival and departure was spent on rediscovering one of the greatest cities in the world again and again. We explored museums that we…

It seems a bit premature to start ruminating on this subject - after all, we are not going back to the US as yet. But Jeri asked the question, and I figured I'd give it a try. So, what will I miss of England and Europe once I eventually repatriate? Would I be too predictable if I started with ease of European travel? I mentioned on many occasions that one of the primary reasons for our relocation to the UK was our desire for active exploration of Europe, a proposition that is not exactly viable when living Stateside, for obvious reasons of distances and expenses. We've done a large amount of traveling in the last couple of years and we've left tons of destinations still undiscovered. I don't want to get into an analysis of whether we exploited our situation to the fullest. What I do know is that there…

By the simplest gauge, I have already had a handful of posts devoted to the tried subject of British weather, so I can hardly expound on it any more without truly approximating a broken gramophone record. Yet, that particular topic remains - as it would be in any civilized discourse - the only one that can inexhaustibly feed a conversation. For instance, the glorious week and a half of sun and warmth has now seemingly been replaced with the more customary drizzle and chill... Oops, here I go again. Sorry! Instead, let me heap a new meme thingie on you, courtesy of my friend Jason, who himself picked it up elsewhere. There is a list of books. The original rules were fairly simple: Bold the ones you've read on your own, underline the ones you've read for school, italicize the ones you've started but not finished. Prior to Jason, someone…

There is this blog called Stuff White People Like, which some people find funny. The big idea of generalizing the preferences of white folk is as sensible as predicting British weather - any arbitrary guess has a chance of being 50% correct. I am pretty sure that a Harward-educated WASP and a Yeshiva-educated Jew have as much - or, rather, little - in common with one another as they have with every other race and ethnicity in the country. But, hey, whatever makes it worthwhile for people to express themselves online!... Several days ago, when the count of items on that blog was at 82, some other people with plenty of time on their hands decided to make a meme out of the list. My usual source of things of this kind, Jason, has produced his own take on how well he fits into the definition of the "white person"…

Weather again. Some portions of England have experienced the worst flooding in 60 years over the last couple of days. Watching the news last night, I've noticed a clear convergence of events. Deluge in England... Floods in Texas... Inundation in Bangladesh and China... Is it too late now to start building an ark? The anchorwoman on the news asked her weatherwoman counterpart point-blank: "Is all of this the result of the global climate change?" The poor weather girl could only manage something along the lines of "We are studying it"... At least, the overall British weather seems to refute any notion of global warming so far. I know I am going to jinx it eventually, but we have not yet felt the absence of air conditioning in the house. With July almost at its end, it is still reasonably cool and, truly according to stereotypes, consistently damp. But let's talk…

England went smoke-free on July 1st. Smoking in all public establishments is now expressly prohibited. The word pub is actually a contraction of public house, so these quintessential Anglo-Saxon establishments are certainly included in the ban. The rooms previously perpetually filled with thick smoke are suddenly clear and breathable. In restaurants, there is no longer a question of "smoking or non-smoking"... I can't stand smoke, so when a co-worker remarked a few days ago how improved the pub-going experience had become for him, I could only heartily agree. But what amazes me is that - unlike in New York, where a similar law went into effect, what, 7-8 years ago? - in England, I do not see any covert attempts to disregard the ban. When I remarked on that in a conversation, noting that for many months after the start of the ban in NY one could find restaurants that…

A colleague of mine noted the other day that Brits are famous for talking about the weather a lot, because, well, "all we have is bad weather". I am clearly assimilating, then, since I feel compelled to start this entry with an observation that it seemed as if the entire June was one endless rain... Yep, that's famous British weather for you. The natives swear that they do not recall it ever being this wet, to which I retort that every year reports from Wimbledon mention entire play-days being rained out. The facial expression that comes on once the person realizes the truth of my statement is rather priceless. It's gotten warmer than it was last week, but still remains unseasonably cool. Cool to us, I mean, although it is definitely not a complaint, given that we already got some taste of high temperatures with no air conditioning in the…