I’ve been back in the UK for over 10 months now. Crazy, time flies and all that jazz… but well, this isn’t what this article is about. This article is about WEATHER. And, well, how we have so much of the stuff over here in Blighty.
Maybe you’re not a cold person. Maybe you’re the kind of warm-blooded creature that can slip out of bed barefooted and stroll straight onto the cold tiled floor of the bathroom without so much as a shrug. Well, that person, I am not.
October marks the beginning of autumn here in Britain. The start of the dark days, the rain, the cold. Time of Halloween, of Fireworks Night, lumpy scarves, browning leaves and runny noses. It’s a time where persistent light drizzle is seemingly never ending and opening your curtains in the morning, you’re greeted with the same dark, drizzly dankness that you’ll encounter on your drive home from work at night. It’s like the night has finally won some epic, Game of Thrones style battle with the day. And, as lowly peasants we all have to suffer for it. Nothing terrifies me more than an overcast sky. Again, I’m not sure if that has something to do with watching too much Game of Thrones or the fact that I live in the world’s drizzliest city.
It’s a time of leaves on the track, of clocks going back and using words like “pointless” and “ugh” far too frequently. I’ve tried to combat the weather by buying up every charity shop jumper I come across (and attempting to wear them all at once) whilst looking into the practicality of bulk buying vitamin D tablets on the internet. Google’s answer to combating seasonal affective disorder just seems flawed: go outside (it’s cold and raining); exercise more (it’s cold and raining); see your friends (sure, I’ll plan to, but we all know I’ll bail, because it’s cold and raining).
But, it’s not all bad.
There is something rather magical about a change of the seasons. Something that I have missed in my time away from my home country. The nights getting longer, the days more fleeting. It fills me with a sense of hope; of infinite possibility for the sunshine-y months the lay not that far ahead. Not to mention, a whole bucket load of back-patting, slow-clapping appreciation for this beautiful, complex, mind-boggling world we live in.
Yey to that.
