Bottesford

This bit has left me a little baffled - in what way do women (and children) cause 'hassle' in warm weather? OK kids might want to play outside more but women? Lost me... Besides it might have been mild lately but its also been very wet so I suspect most kids are indoors anyway - especially with it getting dark by 6pm. No air frosts usually here till November - which is fine with me. Gives me a longer season in the garden and keeps the costs down. Once we're into late Nov it can turn cold.

If they weren't stopped by getting soaked by all this rain what makes you think a bit of dark would stop them?

Only if doing a lot of activity - for decorating, cleaning, packing and so forth then yes 17c will do. But to sit without much movement and work in for hours? Not a chance!

Certainly mild enough to cycle around in just a t-shirt but the house itself needs a bit of heat into it as - like during summer - it actually feels cooler when you walk in and feels warmer outside. Earlier it was only 1c warmer inside than out which is a very 'summer' situation except 16-17c just isn't warm enough to sit indoors. Its made worse by the rain - if I don't heat a damp feel comes across the house which does nothing any good at all.

Despite the mild weather the leaves look well turned here - a mucky brown look to everything certainly not as colourful as in some years - lack of sun probably. Yes great for heating bills but then after last spring - well deserved!

15.4c min here- deffo summer style night temps but certainly doesn't 'feel' summer with the appallingly low light levels and the way its still only 15.5c now (flat line since 0300). The heating still clicked on this morning for a bit as house temp was only 2c warmer than outside. In summer of course a 15.4c night would be close to 20c by 8am and the sun would be warming the place up nicely. Not so today.

I'm more talking in length than depth - it was still chilly right into June.

It's still normal October conditions - but its just that is been fairly consistent in one type of October condtion rather than alternating. Besides we endured a bitterly cold spring - nature shall rebalance itself and all. For a real rebalance of spring we'd need a mild November and early December too of course... Personally it's much easier to deal with- the house has settled to 19c without needing to heat which is spot on when you're running around packing things into boxes!

You do know this is about as normal as it gets for autumn? Mild, stormy & wet is the very definition of October like weather. It's not all frosts and freezing nights in autumn you know - that's much more akin to spring really!

At least this wet period has fallen at the correct time of year this time round - in the autumn. A dry/sunny autumn may sometimes look pretty but to most people having the best of the weather in the summer is far more important.

Today made is much easier to clear my house - especially compared to last weekends constant rain! Happy with these temps - will keep my final bill down!

Haha that genuinely made chuckle! Who's betting in reality we're talking to a man under the thumb...

Do you reckon you'd hate sunlight less if you didn't do shift work for a living? I've heard this off a few people who do odd hours - the hatred of summer warmth & sun as you try to force yourself against nature by sleeping when the sun is high in the sky. Its certainly easily to operate an artificial 'day' during winter given that most light is obtained from electrical rather than a solar source and thus easier to control. We're naturally programmed to get up and sleep with the solar day cycles and do more feeding and activity in summer than winter. Fighting against it no doubt causes much mind based friction!

Months dominated by easterly based low cloud are high contenders for 'boring'. as are many recent August months where its 'warm' but not quite warm enough and we live under constant cloud with very mild nights. Although a boring warm August far beats a boring cold April for example. This year spring got very boring because of the unending chill and low cloud although I did enjoy the extremity of March and seeing my yard full of snow! Surely the definition of a boring month would need the following: - High cloud amounts - Little diurnal range but... - Temps nothing special - a -5 to 0c range/25c to 20c range is interesting whereas 8c to 13c isn't! - Lack of heavy precipitation. - High frequency of drizzle...

Came on this morning to take the edge off but spent the day packing things & cleaning everything so in this mild 17c weather we could even open the windows! Soon as I sit down they're closed and house is sitting at an acceptable 19c which will do till I head out this evening.

All I can say is - don't ever fly anywhere! Even when you go to Europe - that 1 hour you do feel it even more so on short trips. And it does confuse at times! Try doing an 8 hour timeshift - I did that to LA and its very tough especially when you land late eve one day then next morning you're thrust into work. How many clocks do you own? Computers/phones do themselves, I've got one wall clock, one watch and a bedside clock - takes less than a minute to do 'em all! Definitely agree with others on the need to move to BST earlier in March - a real waste of light having it all pre 7am (and pre 6am just before the clock move here) when its still getting dark early evening when the most people are awake. I'd suspect 6pm is universally an awake time unless you're on shift work - even for the early to bed folk/kids its too early for bed and the lay in bed half the day lot are up too. Crazy getting dark at that time when it is light when relatively few are awake that early in the morning.

I enjoy a good Atlantic storm too - but only from around mid Oct until Christmas generally although in Jan too can be interesting too. If I could pick a month I'd most want a howling Atlantic storm its got to be November.

Working with clients in both the US and Europe I can tell you I wouldn't want to move nearer US time (+4 hours) but be further behind (-2 hours) from Europe. Having the US behind is good - you can get in to work and prepare things before they sign on - a lot of them start very early too (one guy gets to the office at 5am! But 7am is more normal) so it doesn't matter too much. But Europe is 1 hour ahead and even now they can pester you the moment you get in - but if it were two hours ahead (like our Ukrainian client who would then be +3 hours) its even worse. We also work with India a lot too - they would further out for the whole summer as well as in winter. But worse is our guy who works for us over in Thailand - for him its dreadful when we go to GMT as we're asking him for things right into his evening! Or more common is we can't all work together from noon instead of 1pm as it is when we're on BST. Moving to Euro time would make my business life much easier that's for sure.

But two hours difference from mainland Europe!

Todays better weather helped a lot as it only fell to 18c - and I even noticed a 0.4c rise when the sun fell on the place! That warming ended by 1030 so we cooled off from then. Heating came as normal at 6ish so it ran on auto until it made it to its decent 21c. Certainly less gas will be used in the coming days!

Crikey this got heated! I suppose everyone has their own opinion based on where they live and whether they are a morning or evening person and of course whether they like the light or not. I offer my opinion purely based on a midlands point of view and of someone who when he gets home from work prefers to look round the garden rather than fumble around in the dark looking for the light switch. Mornings - well blazing sunlight and warm is the ideal and gets me up ready to go so that's great. But in winter with its darkness.... - well I personally I keep the lights off as harsh artificial light is not something my morning eyes & brain want.. I'll operate in near darkness keeping my head firmly in bed mode as long as possible! As far as timezones and such goes - you can't win in winter -its dark too much for that. In summer its light lots (too much for some, I know) so that's ok. I guess its the inbetween time when any clock move would be most effective.

The problem with the jump to GMT is how utterly dreadful traffic/safety conditions become just after that clock move. Count yourself lucky if you get to stay in bed till (at least) 0830. I'm lucky in it being 'only' 0730 but I suspect most working folks are up 0630-0700 so its dark for months on end anyway. It'd make little difference to them in the morning if we stayed on BST but it'd make a lot of difference during early Nov and Feb in the evenings to be on BST!

Yes the best change we could make is moving the clocks back to BST at the same time the US does - early March. More people are awake at 1830 than 0630!

Snow over xmas might look nice but is very disruptive for those of us who will now be travelling to/from home to see family. The real snow can wait till Jan when it don't matter anymore!

No GMT all year would be very wasteful of daylight in the summer months for the bulk of the population of the UK. BST all year would be better and I think worth a try!