English Weather in November

ENGLAND

I recently returned back to England for the first time in twenty years, mainly because my Dad sent the family some money and the family decided that it would be a good idea for me to go back and see him before one or both of us croaked-it.

As I am one of the most invalid (as in not valid) Invalid Pensioners in existence (In my opinion, anyway!) It was decided that I should go over there with my 14 year old daughter Ness, as a Carer, Hmmh!

I didn’t particularly want to go over there as a tourist and only wanted to go and see my old hunting grounds (walking, pubs and chip-shops) and my Old Man and do boring old-farty things. My sister, in England agreed with this and said that she would pay for Nessie’s airfare and look after her over there while I did my own thing.

I arranged to stay in a cottage in Little Hayfield for the first and last weeks and stay with my sister in Swadlincote for the middle two weeks. This is an an edited account of our trip. Ness can give her own version. We left at the beginning of November, which was not an ideal time from her school’s point of view, but they reckon that travel broadens the mind and I thought that a month in England would be a better education, than a month doing trig and Religious Education in North Melbourne.

ENGLISH WEATHER

As an expatriate Pom I was a tad disappointed in the weather, November is supposed to be cold, wet and miserable. I was expecting snow, hail, frost and gale force winds. I was expecting to get chilblains on my extremities fingers, toes and possibly testicles (maybe not!). I was expecting to be slipping and sliding on icy pavements.

My Good Lady Wife (GLW) had bought me a padded jacket (parka, not strait-jacket) that would have kept Oates warm and saved him from farewelling Scott and staggering to his demise in the Antarctic wastes. I had to carry it through Changi Airport in Singapore (which boasts of being 3 degrees north of the equator and is consequently bloody hot) because it was too bulky to fit in my suitcase. My daughter said it looked like I was carrying a very large baby or a very small midget, so we called it ‘Midge’ and took a photo of it sitting in a seat with it’s arm around my shoulders.

I wore it once at Manchester Airport when my nephew picked us up, but I had to take it off to get into the car to fasten the seat belt. After that, I never wore it again and gave it away to my 87 year old dad. While he thought I wasn’t watching, he gave it away to my brother-in-law and that was the last I saw of dear ‘Midge’.

To get back to the point, ‘English Weather’, it was either exceptionally mild or maybe with ‘global warming’ that sort of weather has become the norm. It was quite cold on our first day there on 30th October and as I was staying up near the Peak District, we did experience snow when we drove a little higher. This was promising, not exactly ‘Midge’ weather, but getting close.

I spent a week up in the hills and got wet once, but apart from that, nothing. I then spent two weeks in Swadlincote, where it was even milder before returning back to Little Hayfield in the Peak for another week. I did get a little flurry of snow while I was there, it lasted for about five minutes.

After we returned to Aus (26C) I checked the weather in the UK the next day and it was a min -6C, max 3C in Stockport and would have been even colder in the Peak. I thought, bugger this, I’ll go in February next time.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull.