Near freezing to death indeed!

There is just NO getting away from it – Scotland is a ****** cold country. And I’m sorry for swearing but Scotland is so ****** cold all the time that you HAVE TO use expletives. A friend in Sri Lanka who’s done a fair bit of world travel and living abroad told me that when I went home I’d “near freeze to death”. What he forgot to tell me was that it would last for … a month so far and counting. I thought I’d get used to it but I haven’t.

Ice Box

It’s just cold all the time but despite it being cold outside, sometimes that’s where I go to heat up – I’m not sure if my mum likes to live in an ice box or if she genuinely doesn’t feel it but this house is bitter. My sister lives across the path and sometimes I go to hers for a heat – ha, some chance! She’s as bad.

Sauna

Or is it me? Could it be that in three short months my body became so acclimatised to the heat that it’s having trouble re-adjusting. Sri Lanka was too hot, like living in a sauna and although I rarely complained, given that most of my friends had snow and bitter winds to put up with, I did once tell someone the thing I was most looking forward to was feeling cold again. You can’t even get cool in Sri Lanka (as I said in a previous post I have been known to get so close to a fan that it’s nearly taken the face off me!) but I now know which I’d choose if I could and it’s not Scottish weather that’s for sure.

Loving the light nights

I like having the different seasons here (there are only two in SL – the hot season and the monsoon season) and I absolutely LOVE the light nights but these temperatures are not funny.

Come ahead if you think you're hard enough

Now Scotland has a reputation for being friendly, particularly the West of Scotland but I remember standing in Glasgow Airport on my return and wondering how on earth we got that reputation. To me, everyone looked aggressive, arms were folded defensively, most of the men had a “come ahead if you think you’re hard enough” look on their faces and there were few, if any, cheery smiles. I compared it to the friendly relaxed smiling faces in Sri Lanka and decided we didn’t know the meaning of the word friendly.

Standing up to the elements

It didn’t take me long to realise that the arm folding, the grimacing and the hard nut looks are nothing to do with being friendly or otherwise – it’s all about the flamin’ cold. Crossing your arms over your body makes you feel like you’ve a chance of keeping the wind away and maybe the “come ahead” look is directed at the elements. In both Scotland and Sri Lanka, people ARE extremely friendly – it’s just it’s much easier to smile in warm sunshine and I will miss that sunshine and those sunny smiling faces for forever! The pic of the smiling girls are courtesy and copyright of this guy.