Weather

Having returned from the Autumn in Spain and Belgium to the humidity and heat of Sydney, I have recently been thinking often about the weather.
I just read a column by Peter Hitchens about the season of Advent where he talks about the weather in England at this time of year.
I find Hitchens a puzzling writer. As a political journalist, he can become tedious and repetitive, even if you agree with what he is saying. However, every now and then he breaks into gloriously descriptive and thoughtful prose, for example his description in this article of the weather in the season of Advent:

"Now, to Advent. Being a northern person who greatly prefers a frosty morning to a sunny afternoon, who loves to see  storms beating on the coast and trees shaken by the wind,  I enjoy this time of year, which seems to me to be full of promise and immensely exhilarating.

There is something about the long light of the low sun (when it appears)  which is particularly thrilling, and the rapid dusk of the short afternoons intensifies the pleasure of homecoming from a long walk in the crisp, open air."

As I have been telling people, every gene in my body is designed for northern winters, not southern summers. As much as dozing on a beach can give pleasure, I also thrill to the weather that Hitchens describes so well.