Bottesford

Well the swifts ceased flying around late July so that was the first sign! But then they only hang around May-July anyway before heading back to Africa. Now my tomatoes and chillies are ripening all at once so plenty of veg around for a while! Next sign is when everything dies off and the joys outdoor gardening stuff ceases until next April.

Quite agree - we *should* be on GMT putting solar noon at noon and so on. Problem is, our perception of what time of day it is is so ingrained that it works out easier to move the clocks than to change peoples view on what time of day 6pm 'feels'... 11:30pm is my usual weekday bedtime - meaning 10pm still feels early, but gone midnight feels late. I eat dinner around 7-7:30 but if I eat at gone half 8 it feels late (or pre 6pm feels early). The same is no doubt true for everyone (albeit with different times). All that is dictated by my working day (0830-1730) and to stray from it isn't really possible. So with our present work patterns (yes I know there are shift workers and so on but I'm talking about the majority of the workforce, students, kids, etc.) we either accept sleeping through a fair chunk of daylight and coming home not too far from dusk or we move the clocks (as we do now).

They do indeed - for around 5 months of the year! Had a friend who lived & worked on the northern tip of Japan (where you could see Russia across the sea!) who told me of the crazy daylight hours. They were on about changing it as it made no sense at all working 8/9-4/5 when the sun was up at 4am but gone at 7pm. They definitely got sick of the snow too - crazy as it sounds to us here :blink:

I'd prefer CET/CEST time personally. Yes GMT is our 'right' time (and I know some people would prefer to stick to it) but unless everyone shifts their perception of what 'time' it is then it just won't work. Somehow you've got to make 7pm feel like 9pm e.g. by showing post 'watershed' tv! Work schedules must change, public transport would start earlier/finish earlier, rush hour would be earlier and so on... Otherwise it'll be like northern Japan (who don't move the clocks) where it's sunrise is around 4am but its dark at 7pm in summer - crazy!

Bang right! Although the hot weather makes the long rain coat look even more suspicious... Got a sunny morning here making it very noticeable how much lower the sun has got since June (the last time we had lots of sunny mornings!). No longer any sun in the house by time I set off in the mornings nor on the garage door. It's much closer to eye level too which gives some tricky blind junctions at times!

We've fallen to 18.4c in here after two sunless and cold days. The east wind makes things worse as it literally strips this place of warmth. I suspect I'm going to get some complaints when the missus gets in! Had to keep the windows shut in the office too for first time in months which made for a stuffy day complete with the usual headache. The time for living freely seems to be over - it's time to begin 'coping' again! Gladly that ain't quite true yet as I'm sure there is better weather coming before the plunge.

Flat lined at 20c all day. No sun to heat it earlier so only cooking dinner and our own bodies to warm - which it has done by 0.1c!

That's a very depressing way of looking at things! You might as well have said 'I like darkness as I don't like other people' I guess it depends where you live really - I remember sometimes feeling similar myself in my old house - hoping for rain to get the chavette next door back indoors so I didn't have to hear her whining/throwing fags in our garden! Gladly I've moved to somewhere where warmth and light = a parade of attractive student ladies walking through from the city to studentland whereas darkness/cold = mass of coat covered hulks that you can barely see their faces... Sticking to BST here would be great. At present I hardly ever cycle to work in darkness (setting off at sunrise around the solstice - 0815) but have to endure cycling home in it for four months (clock move weekend through to end of Feb). Now cycling at night is ok in spring/summer/early autumn as its long after the rush hour but the combo of sudden rush hour darkness, student drivers new to the area and very heavy traffic (especially when it rains) is extremely unpleasant - you often spend most the journey feeling very unsafe. If we stuck to BST I'd probably only have two months of darkness in the evenings - two weeks of which are xmas holiday anyway. I'd get dark mornings for maybe 5-6 weeks (with two xmas hols again). Sounds great to me - it would centre daylight hours around my working day and maybe avoid the awful headaches/depression I get as it gets dark while still in the office.

I went to Iceland in June- it was fantastic! Endless daylight with sunshine at 11pm (and again by 2am) - fantastic for outdoor activities as you've got no chance of getting stuck somewhere after dark! Feels quite weird though - sleep patterns get disrupted a bit. Up there they consider the light season as a time for working/having fun 24/7. During the dark season they have a lot of problems with depression however.

Yeah but the Spanish are on Euro time (i.e. UK time + 1). When I went to Spain one summer it got dark post 9pm and light around half 6 in the morning - that's spot on for summer! Yes we should 'work round' the sunrise/sunset times but unfortunately for most of us that isn't possible. Although I might be able to adjust my work times a bit, none of my friends nor the missus could do so as their jobs don't allow it. It'd take quite a shift in attitudes to work to daylight patterns moving the 'standard' 9-5 working day to 7-3 (which makes more sense daylight wise in summer). Can anyone actually see that happening? It's just easier to move the clocks!

Aren't they on about keeping us on BST all year round? Seems a good plan to me cutting my journey home from work in darkness from 4 months to 2 although meaning much darker mornings.

Certainly can be similar here. Take last winter which is held up as a snowy one - it wasn't here! The bands of showers passed all around us but rarely over us hence only getting about 5mm in the whole snowy period. However, if there are rogue rain showers around in summer they're bound to pass over - and usually as I'm leaving work!

I know - instead of being woken up fresh and ready to go to work every morning I can rejoice in having my eyes half closed and being in a foul mood until mid morning - yipee can't wait! Oh and even better is it getting dark at 4pm - none of this easy cycles home in sunshine coupled with light summer traffic - instead I can 'man up' and take my life into my own hands in cycling in the pitch black in considerably heavy traffic as the 'fair weather crew' abandon walking/cycling and jump back in their cars! I'm counting down the days already :lol:

Noticeably shorter days now - more just an irritation than anything as I have to feed the plants etc soonish after dinner rather than taking my time... Come a month from now it'll be a quick post work job, another month everything will be dead anyway - and home daylight restricted to weekends only

Living room runs from a freezing 11c during winter during coldest weather and just before heating comes on in afternoon (i.e. not heated since morning) where I wait 2 hours for it to reach bearable temp of 20c. I try to hold it around 20-20.5c but this rapidly falls away once heating is off for an hour. Bedroom ideally around 18-21c but often falls lower in winter, higher in summer when sun is on it (mornings). In summer living room rarely rises above 23c except in the hottest weather and only then until lunchtime when the sun moves round. It easily falls away into the teens with windows open once outdoor temps drop off at night. This place is poorly insulated and very sensitive to cool/cold weather. It's a lovely summer house keeping cool and pleasant but a dreadful winter house where you need to burn half the North Sea gas reserve to keep warm! It's currently 20.9c in here having been around 20c all night - no windows open as yet.

That's precisely how I'd take my winter and I think if UK winter's were like that for the majority of the time I might like it more. But because, for the most part, we get 'average' weather meaning 2-6c with low cloud/drizzle then I'm never going to love UK winters! They just seem like a whole load of cack weather with a sprinkling of nice bits. At least in summer during average weather (like today) you can still open the window!

Ask the same question in mid Feb and you'd find a different result I'm sure!

I would certainly put spring ahead of autumn not only since spring means summer is coming and days are getting longer but also because the weather is more interesting. The contrast between the powerful sun & cold ground/sea makes for much more dynamic conditions despite being cooler overall. Autumn warmth is supplied by lingering energy stored in the ground/sea with an ever weakening sun which makes for much less variation and a more 'decay'. Spring feels much more energetic, fresh and alive. Perhaps likened to a working week - Friday afternoon and evening is spring, the weekend proper is summer, Sunday night is autumn, and Monday morning is November and into winter! My order would be: late spring/early to mid summer, mid summer to very early autumn, late winter-early/mid spring, mid winter, mid/late autumn-early winter. Or in month order... June, July, May, August, April, September, March, February/October, December, January/November.

Summer by a clear mile. A sociable and fun time of year when outdoors becomes equal with indoors. A time to spend outdoors rather than cooped up inside day & night with any venturing outdoors requiring a lot of preparation. Summer a time of year when the daily routine of getting up, going to work and socialising is considerably more easier. The result of this question always varies depending on the time of year it is asked. Late summer you'll find winter to be more popular but the other way around in late winter.

This summer seems to have ramped up nicely in May and June. During July it's very steadily and slowly gone downhill. In July it was still warm and mostly dry but increasing cloud. As the weeks have gone on it's got increasingly duller, wetter and cooler which is rapidly leading to a poor August. Despite above average temperature August's in recent years - this has often come from high night minima not from hot days. It's not much good being 16c (as opposed to say 13c) at 4am when it rains or is just dull and cool all day. Summer weather goodness is about sunshine levels, followed by dryness followed by temperature. For those of us who don't relish cool temperatures and incessant rainfall (whilst sniggering at all those failed holiday plans and children stuck indoors... well maybe some do that I dunno ;-)) then August is rapidly failing us now. For me I always prefer my good weather in May-July (around peak light levels) so if we had to have naff weather, better now than in June.

Oh no 7c really is neither one thing nor the other - certainly not warm or pleasant but not cold enough to benefit from snow/frost, etc. 2c-6c coupled with drizzle is the very worst weather possible imo - nothing interesting and only good for one thing - burning fuel! If you think long term it'd be better to have a short sharp winter rather than the chill spread for 8 months as less gas will be burnt for heating thus less global warming!

Yeah I like 'em too. Can remember a night in Oct 2006 where I could sit out at night in a t-shirt (and I mean proper night not 6pm night!) - lovely it was. That last reminder of summer before things turn 80% grim for 4 months.

We've had a few dry & calm autumns in recent years (a punch in the face after the soaking in those wet summers!) so I'd like to see a mixture of gales & fierce Atlantic storms (which push up very muggy tropical air thus have a lot of energy) and quieter dry cooler/warm periods with sunshine. Cold weather can stay away till late Nov for me as 6c is only good for burning gas/money so it might as well be 12c-15c until it can turn cold proper. Winter - I'd the theme to continue - some short but powerful storms mixed in with longer quiet periods with *sunshine*. Quiet periods either bitterly cold or fairly mild. Easterlies can stay away unless they are sufficiently cold/unstable enough to bring clear skies and snow showers. Weeks of AC gloom with a nagging, warmth sapping east wind are not welcome for me!

I think my 8/10 was spot on for the first half of summer but the second half is looking more like 5/10. Really need some sun to ripen all the tomatoes, etc I've got growing!

July - well it started off fantastic with lots of warm weather day and night with plenty of sunshine. But the last two weeks have really let it down- near constant cloud and often just not quite warm enough to be pleasant. Plenty of days with early morning and evening sunny spells but with generally very dull days. Fairly dry but a few rainy periods to prevent the dust bowl like further south.