to love UK weather reports. "the temperatures will SOAR to 23°C this week"

[MmeLindt]

I know, I know, I am used to the continental warmer weather but I still find it really sweet when my parents go, "Oooooh, it is going to be 19°C on Thursday, that is really hot".

We will still be wearing cardigans until it is well over 20°C, while the Brits are in their strappy tops and bikinis.

But then here, people get their knickers in a twist over a few drops of rain, so it's all relative, I suppose!

it always used to make me giggle in Spain (south of) when people would sigh in August, & say 'its sooo hot, it must be hotter than normal, it wasn't this hot last year' (in spanish, obviously)

No - its always hot in Almería in August, it always will be hot, and it never has not been hot. It won't stop being hot for at least another month . . .

Then come January when it is a pleasant 16C or so they will all be complaining about how cold it is.

Since then I have never considered the British people weather obsessed. At least ours is unpredictable, so it is more sensible to talk about it IMVHO

I agree Psammead, Italians (where I'm from) react to rain as if it was incandescent magma falling from the sky.

Backto
it is funny that you should mention air conditioning. Here in central Europe 30+ is not unusually hot but few offices and hardly any homes have air con. The Americans I know find it very uncomfortable. I have had to teach them how to make their homes cooler (shutters down during day, open windows in morning and evening to let cool air in).

You are funny, I just started a grumbling thread about not being able to sit in my garden ...

We have aircon in France though. But only downstairs.

I've lived here all my life and still not acclimatised to the chilly wet weather.

I'm cold until at least 25+ degrees.

But I'm the person who went to Death Valley and said "ooh, it's so nice to not have to wear a coat" when it was 125 in the shade .

I wore sandals today in the scorching 18 degree (or whatever) heat... it then pissed down and my feet got soaked.

What would we talk about in post office queues if the weather was predictable though?

I've never felt the need for air con during the years we lived in the UK (but I was the crazy woman wearing a wooly hat until May/june... yes, I was a weird sight at the school gate...)

In my household we call any day over 18 degrees a "cockney heatwave" as the scaffolders over the road are sure to be engaging in a little display of "shirts off" exhibitionism!

Tiger feet asks, "What would we talk about in post office queues if the weather was predictable though?"

I would answer that we'd happily discuss the percentage chances of any of our mail reaching it's intended recipient within a month.

Snobear, are you trying to destroy the myth of the British mail system? ! I love the British mail system!

When we first moved here I used to think 'I will just wait for the rain to stop' before doing stuff. LOL.

The payoff for that though is how lovely and lush and green it is.

Any kind of extreme weather in this country and it grinds to a halt.
Snow.Frost.heavy winds.Fog.Sun.

What makes me alugh as well is when teh weather girls trips out into the Blue Peter garden and says "it's a scorcher out there"
Maybe where you are ,but elsewhere (i.e the rest of the uk covered by the national news) it's raining or cold and windy. As long as it's hot and sunny in London they don't care about the fact it's pissing down in Borders, snow in Argyll, rain in devon and gale force winds in Cardigan Bay

Oh, in Italy the headlines about the weather get more and more dramatic every year. As if hot summer and freezing winters had been totally unknown in the past

I'm not talking about being concerned by global warming, but the media seem to love going on and on and on about how hot/cold it is.
Every summer we have the same programs about the heat, with people dipping their feet in the Trevi fountain in Rome .

Morloth
My DH is always very amused by my mum's attempts at hanging out washing. I only hang things outside if the forecast is good. My mum puts her washing out in all weathers and then takes it off the line and onto a screen in the house to finish drying. He cannot understand why she does not just put it straight on the screen.

Pussinjimmychoos: 'What I want to know is why UK gets such crappy weather...I mean France actually gets proper summers....but not UK!!'

Er, because the British Isles are actually very far north?
If it weren't for the Gulf Stream we'd be covered in ice most of the time...

yes, we are quite close to Iceland, remember !

Oh dear MmeLindt I do exactly the same thing. The sun comes out, I rush out and put it on the line, then it rains so I rush out and bring it in and hang it on the indoor hanger thing, which I then put outside when the sun comes back and then rush out and bring it back it when it rains...rinse repeat.

My Mum couldn't understand why I was so excited that I could hang the washing outside when I called her for Australian Mother's Day.