T-shirt and flip flop weather

     All the Brits I know love to talk about the weather.  It is one of the main questions I get asked whenever I met a new person who is British or English, or Scottish, or Welsh, or whatever they are calling themselves this week.   Most of them think I will comment about how nasty it is or how cold and wet or something along those lines.  Truth be told - I love the British weather, possibly much more than they do!  So it is common for them to complain about the weather and grumble about it, grouse about it, swear at it, and leave it whenever possible.   I am happy to be in it where there are actual seasons: spring, summer, fall, winter.  And each season has its own charm and characteristics and accompanying weather.

     A very common British past-time is to head to Spain or Italy or Greece during any break they have (from school or work) whenever the weather dips below 20C (around 70F - roughly).   A good status symbol is to show up at work during the winter with a tan!  Obviously it means you are rich and lucky enough to have gone somewhere warm enough to sit out in the sun for a few days.  

      I personally have a very small comfortable temperature range.  It is a joke in my family that I am most comfortable when the temperature is around 68F to 72F.  Anything different and I start complaining about being too hot or too cold.  The thermostat gets twisted around, clothes come on, clothes come off, blankets on or off the beds, whatever.  All this is probably going to cause problems when we retire to Florida!  But I have gotten much better at being out of doors in England in a much wider variety of temperatures.  As such, I can run around outside when the weather is in the teens (10-16C) with just a hoodie and stay fairly OK.  Any colder, and I am reaching for a good coat, good gloves and scarf or hat as well.

     It is amazing that when I am bundled up, there are still many Brits who are so used to their cold winter weather that I am passing them on the street where they are wearing just their t-shirt, jeans, and flip flops!  I've seen so many Brits dressed in this standard "uniform" at 10C or even 5C.  I feel quite proud of myself that I have extended my range of comfortable temperatures but I don't think I'll ever get that comfortable.

     Yesterday I went out with a friend and it was cold enough for it to snow on us briefly and for me to have a very warm coat and gloves.  She had on a sweater and that was it!  No fleece, no gloves, no coat, no hat.   We had to even stand outside for about 10 minutes and I didn't see her shiver once!  When asked, she said she was used to it because they don't have central heating in their house!  No heating!   OMG.  I definitely would have a hard time with that.  The few times our boiler has broken in the middle of cold weather, I've not been able to function without so many layers that I couldn't function anyway because I couldn't move!

     So my husband and I now joke about whether the weather is T-shirt and flip flop weather or fleece weather or heavy coat weather.  In all instances - we're talking winter weather!

The Empty Golf Course

We are lucky enough to have a lovely rental property that sits behind the first hole of a golf course.  It is quite nice not to have other homes behind us and we have a great view up the fairway for this hole.  The only time it is irritating is some mornings when the groundskeepers come riding down to their shack which is also behind the first hole and they are quite noisy as they get out their machines.   But for the most part it is peaceful and quiet and great.  We see deer cross the fairway sometimes and there's always some magpies and crows flying around down there.

 
Living here we have come to realize what a strange breed is the golfer and especially the British golfer.  It is not a sport that anyone in my family has ever taken up as a hobby or sport or vocation or love.  But the golfers that play the course behind us must be the most avid and determined and also frustrated golfers in the world.  They are out there every single day.  No matter the weather, no matter the date, no matter the time, we see golfers on the course.   The only times we have not seen golfers pursuing their passion have been the three times when the course has been covered in snow.  And quite frankly, we were a bit surprised that there weren't golfers in the snow.  I figured there would be colored golf balls by now so they could be tracked.  But snow means no golfers.


Until this week!  Surrey has taken some heavy rainfall this week and parts of Surrey have gone swimming involuntarily.  Our own garden is a mixture of swamp and muck but at least not underwater like some of my friends.  The first day after the big storm that dumped water on Surrey this week, I was home all day and not once did I see a golfer out on the course.  I didn't think much about it but then we kept having rain and more rain and more rain and now for three days there have been no golfers.  I imagine that it is so wet and muddy that the course has been closed because the golf cleats could probably tear up the grounds pretty badly.  There is a sand trap near our first hole and right now, it is a water feature.  

 So the golf course is empty and I rather miss the golfers.  They come in all sizes and shapes and all manner of odd golf clothes and bring everything from golf carts to remote controlled golf bags that roll across the course by themselves.  And as we have seen golfers in heavy rains and heavy winds, still out there whacking the ball, I believe that the course has been closed by the owners and that there would be golfers there in spite of all the wet and soggy conditions, were they allowed.    Hopefully we'll see some in the next few days.

Venting Inside

              Ha ha, bet you thought this was going to be a blog about ranting and raving and venting all your feelings inside.  Wrong.  It's about weather and winter and how it's getting colder and the days are getting shorter and when the sun goes down, it starts getting pretty chilly in the house.   We learned this trick a long time ago to help put some heat in the house and also some moisture as it gets pretty dry.   Once we are fairly sure the warm days are gone, we pull the dryer vent hose into the house, block up the hole that it goes through to the outside, put one hose (as in panty hose) over the end to catch all the dryer lint, and voila!  Every time we use the dryer now, we have additional heat entering the house and also some moisture.  And by using dryer sheets, we get a nice lavender or citrus smell through the house as well.

            We've done this for years.  In Houston, doesn't last very long, just a few months that it is necessary to get the heat.  When we have lived in colder climates, it really makes a difference and saves a bunch of energy.  Our house in England has a wonderfully big room that used to be a garage.  It has a very high ceiling and is definitely the coldest room in the house during the winter.  Usually we are sitting in there watching TV and wrapped up in quilts with small space heaters turned towards us.  Yesterday I had the dryer vented into the house and we watched TV in comfort.  Didn't need to wrap up in quilts.  So my challenge will now be to make sure I have something to dry whenever we want to sit in that room and watch TV.  OK, not going to happen every night but it will help some nights.

to Drought or Not to Drought

So much talk this spring about the lack of water and the drought we are going to be having and a hosepipe ban. some of this needs translation for the poor former colonists who don't speak the Queen's English anymore. Hosepipe is what they call a garden hose. simple enough. Spring is apparently the time between March and June when it is lighter and brighter outside but still could freeze or snow or hail, and has several times on us. Not at all like spring in Houston - our last address - where spring meant you saw all your flowers bloom briefly before the heat killed them.

Supposedly, we have heard, you get a mailed notice if you are under a hosepipe ban because of lack of water. Then unless you get an exemption, you can't water your grass, wash your car, fill your birdbath or any such thing with your hose. You can do all of that if you carry the water out of your house in a bucket. Also we have been told that neighbors are particularly good at ratting you out and telling on you if they see you with the hose in your hand. Exceptions are if you have a pond with live fish. Then you are allowed to use the hose to keep it full so your fish don't die. We do have a fish pond and while our fish died over the winter, we have since restocked it. It has still been so cold thought that we haven't seen the fish since we released them into the pond.

Now to the meat of the drought - we're thinking it's not much of one if at all. For the past two weeks, it has rained pretty much every day and almost all day long. We spent several days emptying out a bucket from the overflow of our water butt and also from a drip in our gutter. Then we got smart and went and purchased another water butt. Now this butt is also full. Our garden is so saturated that it is swampy in the low areas. I squish when I walk across the grass/moss. I expect to find ducks out there any day splashing about in the puddles. Also, we visited Ham House which is a historical manor and located on the Thames. The Thames was out of its banks and well across several walkways in the area.

This being our first year in England, not sure how much of this is normal and how much is just luck (good or bad) that it didn't rain much for January and February but started raining in late March and hasn't stopped really. I'm hoping that there isn't a drought and that we will not get an official notice not to use our hosepipe but should that happen, I have my water butts before I start hauling water out of the house. I'm good to go.