Liam's write-only LJ

Even as I grow more settled over here, cultural differences still crop up.

This far from the ocean, the seasons vary far more than in Britain. I'd never really grasped how peculiar the British climate is -- how much it is stabilised by the proximity of the sea on all sides. British summers aren't very hot and winters aren't very cold -- especially in certain areas, such as my homeland of the North-West, sheltered by the Pennines and the hills of the Trough of Bowland and beyond that the Lake District to the North, and to the south by the mountains of North Wales. Also true of my adopted homeland, the south-east, of course.

Here, the sea is nearly a thousand miles away. Summer is properly hot and dry -- 35º C is normal for a few months, and rain is infrequent and tropically heavy. Winter, meanwhile, is real winter. Last winter was the longest and coldest of my life, but the locals all told me that there wasn't a winter at all last year. This year has been significantly colder. There was snow on New Year's Day, and there's been more at least once a week since. A week into January, I took my snowboard to the local park, Wilson Forest, for a bit of a practice. The last two Sundays, I went to a nearby resort, Olešnice. My meagre skills are slowly returning, after about six years off.
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