Misadventures on a Small Island

I’ve been here for 9 months. That is, I’ve been living in the UK for the same amount of time it takes to make a baby, give or take.

That’s a long time.

What are my thoughts so far considering I don’t post on this blog anywhere near enough, I hear you ask dear reader? Well, I shall tell you (even of you didn’t ask)

Here’s the first in my list of wants that I’ve compiled over the last 9 months:

I want to not live in perpetual winter.

Before moving to England I was under the foolish presumption that because I am adverse to heat and seem to suffer third degree burns from anything stronger than a 40 watt light globe that I wanted to travel the world chasing winter. That is, spend 6 months in Australia enjoying the mild temperatures and the odd cold snap, perhaps visiting the snow fields, and then spend the other 6 months in England frolicking in the snow and taking long, thoughtful walks along England’s pebbly seaside. In an ideal world, it is the perfect plan for someone with skin so white it’s almost translucent.

I was told that after a true British winter I would be depressed, wanting light and muttering about my precious. I scoffed. Oh, how I scoffed. To begin with, I would get to wear lots of clothes, which, in effect, would mean that I would need to buy lots of clothes. If there’s something I like more than wearing clothes, it’s buying clothes. It’s like a male version of Clueless in my head, but, you know, not gay. Furthermore, in the UK it snows in winter. The UK even has a place called Snowdonia (can I get an amen?). It even snows so much that you have to wear wellies sometimes. To work. How awesome is that, I hear you say.

Pretty awesome, I tell you. Pretty. Awesome.

Christmas came and went and it was the coldest winter since 1344 (or something like that). I learnt that if a single flake of snow falls on London, all public transport falls apart like Lego. Some days it took 6 hours to travel a total of about 30 kilometres.

It also gets dark very quickly in the UK during winter. In fact, some days the sun starts retreating at 3:30 in the afternoon. While at first this has a rather cool quasi-vampire feel to it, the novelty wears off after about 2 days. Then you start praying for sun. Even if you won’t get to enjoy it because it’s about minus twenty three degrees outside.

By the end of the winter I was depressed. I was wanting light so much that I would use Em’s Lightpod as a normal light around the house. I also started asking people to refer to me as Smeagol (wow… nerdy…).

Then Spring started. With a vengeance.

It started with the days getting longer, with pubs turning themselves inside out (people on the outside, empty on the inside) and the sun coming out. A lot. So much that at one point I managed to get sunburnt. In the UK. I know, it’s a strange concept.

Since then days have been filled with bright colours, happy music and sunshine. I have to remind myself that I’m in the UK, because it feels a lot like that sweet spot during Spring in Australia where it’s warm, sunny and humidity doesn’t really exist.

There are few bugs that annoy or attempt to destroy you here, the solution to every problem at the end of the day seems to either be a pint or a bbq, and TV is really bad during the summer so you don’t feel you actually need to be inside.

Summer in the UK is now possibly my favourite season.

Aside from severe bouts of hayfever caused by an assortment of plants, it may actually stay that way too.

And now I’m talking about the weather… I’m settling in better than I thought.