To just want it to be autumn now?

[cravingcrispmornings]

I hate the depths of winter (January and February) with a passion, but my god I am craving those lovely September days where it’s not so hot you feel sweaty by 8am, and you're able to walk around without feeling disgusting.

I want soups and stews and pies back on the menu instead of pasta and salads, I want a piping hot bowl of leek and potato soup with a crusty bit of bread, a steak and ale pie with a helping of buttery mash, a roast dinner.

I’m sick of wearing dresses and sandals, I have a Birkenstock tan line ffs. I want to get into bed and feel cosy, not just have a sheet over the top of me. I’m craving a cosy autumn afternoon, a nice walk through orange woods and coming back to a lovely bowl of stew with a helping of crusty bread, tucked under a blanket reading a book.

I’m just bloody sick of summer!

I'm on holiday in Northumberland where the temperature has been between 17-21 degrees most of the week - going back to Kent in a few days and it's going to be 31 degrees and similar for the rest of the week. Truly sick of the heat. Watering the whole garden with a can during the hisepipe ban is a nightmare. Worrying about pets in the heat. Would like to go for walks but it's too bloody hot. Household tasks are just horrendous - cleaning and ironing in 30+ degrees, horrific. If I move house in the future then summer heatwaves and likelihood of hosepipe bans will be at the top of my list in terms of location. Roll on Autumn.

I’m so sorry! Family in other parts of the UK say the same - it’s definitely already autumn for them.

It’s really not. It’s just return I;g close to t(e seasonal average - which is 16 here this morning. Actual is 18. 14 would just be a slightly cooler than average summer morning.
I like the heat but it being at or just below the seasonal average doesn’t make it ‘autumn’ - just the usual slightly rubbish British summer.

Well the cooling down certainly hasn’t materialised here 😁

There does seem to be quite a north/south divide. I'm in South Yorkshire and I wore a cardigan and socks yesterday for the first time in ages.

@RampantIvylast night was cool, I actually shut my big window. It was a lovely reprieve.

Last night was frigging cold in London. Nightmare. Thank god it’s starting to warm up again. Naturally, we fly home on Sunday before the real warmth gets here. 🤦‍♀️😅

It’s normal for things to be cooler in the night though even in places that are much hotter.

Cooler, yes. Cold, no. I don’t like walking home in 16 degrees after dinner out. That’s no fun. I also love al-fresco dining which it hasn’t been anywhere near warm enough to do (the restaurant we went to did not have outdoor heaters - rookie error for a London restaurant, IMO).

If you live somewhere significantly warmer it’s obviously that your acclimatisation to higher temperatures will mean you perceive the current weather differently to those of us who live here. It’s the same in reverse when we holiday in a much warmer country in February/March. We’re sitting in the sun in T-shirts while the people who live there are bundled up in winter coats. Nobody who lives here needs outdoor heaters right now.

Last night was far too cold to be sitting outside a restaurant at 11pm - there was no one on those tables! And we weren’t anywhere particularly touristy so the locals as much as the visitors thought it wasn’t warm enough. Also I’m pretty much a local, having lived here my whole life up until a couple of years ago. I just prefer warmer weather. Where we were just before the London leg of our Euro trip, it was 24 degrees at midnight - absolutely lush. 💜

But those temperatures are not unusual at night during a UK summer! It’s the UK not Qatar 😆

Most locals would be unlikely to be dining out at 11pm on a Thursday night.

Last night was far too cold to be sitting outside a restaurant at 11pm - there was no one on those tables!

Im sure it was but so what?

Also I’m pretty much a local, having lived here my whole life up until a couple of years ago. I just prefer warmer weather

So you are aware then that this isn’t a typical London summer?

And there is this!

I mean we were there 9pm-11:30pm. Not one person sat outside but the restaurant was heaving inside. Not anywhere particularly touristy and everyone around us was speaking English in English accents.

You’re tenacious, I’ll give you that!

Definitely a huge divide to the north of the uk especially!

Today for me in NE Scotland:
17 degrees feels like 12
High 18 low 10 😢
In my kitchen 17 - hanging on as long as possible to buy oil and put the heating back on it’s so fucking expensive
This morning dog walking - t shirt, cashmere jumper, winter lightweight waterproof, warm track bottoms.
Sky grey, drizzle due.
And yes I’m grumpy when I should be relieved not to have the ridiculously hot and dry conditions of many.

Of course London has had hotter summers! I remember a few years ago it was 30 degrees for weeks on end. I was living in West Hampstead in a flat with a roof terrace and we were out on the terrace every evening. Beautiful summer. I just got my hopes up it would be a repeat of that this summer with all the talk of heatwaves (the odd >30 degrees day here and there does not a heatwave make, in my books) and I’m disappointed, that’s all. 😊

You're just making things up now.
So far in 2026, London has experienced significantly above-average temperatures. July was a record breaking month, with a mean temperature of across the whole month, day and night, of 21.8°C - 3.3°C above normal. The average high in July was 28.3°C.
Minimum overnight temperature records for May & June have been broken, showing its not cooling down as much as it usually does.
We have had 5 officially defined by the Met Office heatwaves so far this year, with another forecast for next week from Sunday to Thursday.
There has been no measurable rainfall in my part of SW London since the 2nd week in June.
Across the UK has a whole, there have been 34 days where a weather station has registered a temperature of over 30 degrees. That matches the 1995 record, and will be easily exceeded over the next week.

We have never had a summer where the heat has been as unremitting as this one.

“By 15 July, 2026 has already recorded more days above 30°C than the whole of 1976. It also became the first year on record to reach 35°C in May, June and July, while overnight temperatures have been running at record levels for this stage of the summer”

“Spring 2026 was the warmest on record for England and Wales and the UK's third warmest overall. June, the first month of meteorological summer, followed suit, becoming England's warmest June on record”

“England and Wales have provisionally, recorded their driest July on record, with Southern England seeing its driest month ever recorded, in a series dating back to 1836.”

”Wales recorded its joint warmest July on record for mean temperature, with the UK and England their second, and Southern England recording its warmest July on record”

”The month was also exceptionally sunny, with the UK, England and Wales recording their sunniest Julys on record, and England and Wales experiencing their sunniest calendar month ever observed”

All from the Met Office, again this is not a typical London summer….

You’re just making things up now

And this poster is on their holidays, I suppose it’s true we all holiday differently! 😁

Surely you realised 2022 was a complete anomaly.

the odd >30 degrees day here and there does not a heatwave make, in my books) and I’m disappointed, that’s all

”By mid-July 2026, the capital and wider UK had already recorded 24–25 days over 30°C. This completely surpassed the threshold metrics of 2025 and even matched the famously scorching summer of 1976”

”The Met Office confirmed that by early August, 2026 shattered the all-time UK record with 8 days climbing above 34°C”

”While 2022 featured the historic July peak reaching an all-time UK record of 40.3°C at Heathrow/St James's Park, the total cumulative count of individual days exceeding 29°C/30°C across the entire summer season was significantly lower than the persistent, repeated heatwaves seen in 2026”

Just the odd day then!

The hot weather has been sporadic. I’m in London this week where it has been too cold to dine outside at night and I have to wear a jacket from about 8pm.

If I could extend our trip so that we could catch some of the lovely warm weather coming next week, I WOULD.

Few things are better than London in hot weather for me.