English Weather

After our cold and grey stay in Edinburgh we decided to head south for some hopefully warmer weather. We packed up and got in the car.

10 miles out of town and it had suddenly turned into a beautiful day...or at least the sun had come out. Pardon the digression but I have to comment on British weather here: First off, the UK is actually pretty friken far north..Inverness, in northern Scotland, is actually about the same latitude as Juneau Alaska and London is about the same latitude as Seattle/Vancouver area. Its the gulf stream apparently that circulates warmish water past the Isles and keeps them from freezing. Without the gulf stream much of the British Isles would be covered in glaciers, which is apparently how they formed in the first place.

Anyway, Edinburgh, which is located on a bay type thing called the Firth of Forth, is subject to pretty fickle weather..it can change within minutes..which as you can imagine makes it really hard to plan your outfit..the trick being to remember to pack extra layers and rain coats in your day bag. Basically the weather here is similar to the San Francisco bay area in that in SF it can be cold, windy and overcast and a mere 10 miles away on the other side of the bay it can be 15 degrees warmer and sunny. Such was our day, cold then then warmish.

Feeling revived by the sudden splashes of sunlight on our faces we decided to stop, get out, and explore a bit. As luck would have it we were right near Rosslyn Chapel...but that'll be the next entry...for now, more on the weather.

Coming from SoCal we take the warmth and the sun for granted..in just a weeks time in the UK we had learned that you take advantage of every minute of sunlight and warmth that you can since it could be days again until you see the sun again. And this is a strange phenomena in itself..not seeing the sun. In Scotland it had been so overcast that you really could not make out where the sun was..the sky was a uniformly grey glowing blanket with some darker and lighter splotches mixed in..like a can of grey paint that hadn't been mixed properly. Not being able to see the sun has some strange side effects; particularly, you can't really tell what time of day it is by the height of the sun nor can you tell which way is east or west by the sun's position.

There's actually another story here: When Helen and I first arrive in Dublin several weeks back the weather was similar, and having just arrived at 10am local time after a 14 hour flight we tried our best to explore the city a bit..we didn't last long and ended up falling asleep in our hotel around 3 in the afternoon. We woke around 8:30 to find the sky a similar shade of grey to when we had gone to sleep. We knew it was 8:30 and we felt rested but we couldn't tell if it was 8:30 that same night or 8:30 the next morning..maybe it was the jet lag but I blame not being able to see the sun as well..we actually had to call down to the front desk to get the day. kinda weird and discombobulating.

Anyway, I don't know how the English do it..technically this is their spring time and according to the locals, "it's not bad out".

I think the Beatles put it best: Here comes the Sun, long live the Sun King.