London Whine #1: The Weather

"It was a Sunday afternoon, wet and cheerless; and a duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London."

- Thomas De Quincey

I have tickets to the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park tonight (a London love) to see Gershwin's "Lady Be Good." This will be our second outing to Regent's Park following "A Midsummer Night's Dream" back in June. On that occasion of 13 June, Suz and I huddled under the umbrella and wished we had a blanket. JUNE!

I remember thinking then that we would be better off next time. The next show was late July/early August, and we could hope for dry but it nothing else, we would have WARM weather. Who needs a blanket when it's almost August?

Wrong again.

The weather page on BBC today actually says only one small phrase, "More Rain" and the Met Office confirmed today that our early summer has been the wettest since records began more than 240 years ago. TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY YEARS PEOPLE!!! Lucky me. No actually, lucky people of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire who have experienced some of the worst flooding the areas have seen.

This is in stark contrast to last summer when it was record breaking hot day after record breaking hot day. When London is hot, it's miserably hot. It's not "nice go lay in the park hot", it's muggy, grimy, wishing you were anywhere but here hot. I have to say, there is nothing quite as dreary as London on a grey cold rainy day, and nothing quite as tiresome as London on a hot one.

Bring on the Pacific Northwest with it's mountains, perfectly temperate sunny days and cold winter snow. I don't even care that snow shuts Seattle down. I prefer to work from home, wrapped in a blanket, drinking my coffee and snow means skiing and skiing means happy and that is preferable to walking to the Tube in the rain day after day after day.

So farewell you miserable London weather.

I won't miss you a drop.