UkWinds5353

I can work with layering. Spent a lot of years doing that very thing in the NYC area. If it doesn't get any worse than that then we should be good. The winter months tend to require a little different approach to travel and especially if snow is a factor. I can't believe we are nearly into the winter months already. Living in Florida you sometimes forget about the time of year based on season change because we virtually have 1 1/2 seasons. And you drive or walk everywhere. Public transportation is not a part of the equation. Picking the right location that is accessible to everything will be a major plus in dealing with winters. At least the first few years until we get climatized. A lot of red cheeks until then!

UkWinds5353

That's what I'm concern about.

It's the bone chilling wet that makes the cold weather so much worse. Very possible to layer to fend off the cold but that wet feeling is the killer. Enough to make a person's teeth chatter I've experienced 30 degrees cold with rain blowing sideways once while in Washington state, and I swear, I've never been that cold even compared to -3 degrees in snow cover New York.

Jerseygirl

I spent 18 years in NJ, now 6 years in Toronto. They both have very similar climates, -20s/30sC is quite normal. You are correct, you can wrap up against the dry sub zero temps, it’s the much milder damp/wet weather that you cannot prevent getting through to your bones.

UkWinds5353

Noted on point 1.

While in the UK, I and my family heard quite often many opinions about the various issues of life in Manchester, Liverpool and the UK in general. It's no exaggeration when I say there were dozens of Brits that couldn't understand why anyone would purposely leave sunny Florida to live in the UK. They would ask if we were tourist and once learning we soon would be moving over, their first comment was why would we give up living in America? I call it the forest for the trees syndrome. Sometimes people can overlook what they actually have and instead focus on the small logistics that go along with life in that place. I thought Brighton was Brilliant and very much alive.

What I noticed about Brighton was the intense over crowding which does feel different and especially when you are use to having personal space when mulling about town. And yes the traffic was truly crazy. But the truth is we noticed the lack of space while in London with so many people moving around in the same areas. But I imagine in time people just get use to life living on a Island. After all the UK isn't much bigger than Washington state. Texas is nearly three times the size of the UK. Chances are our American propensity to view the glass as half full will guide our thinking about life in the UK(as long as the weather is not too crazy) and we'll see it based on the cultural aspects and our connections with the people. And after a few years just complain about the little things just like everyone else does. But I imagine it will take some time before we become jaded if ever. Until that time we will visit Castles and see them as being majestic and when my wife allows me I will enjoy the occasional Shepherd's Pie and know this can only happen in the UK.

Btw, Bangers and Mash is so good!!!

spouse of scouse

Yes, I can see how they'd be beneficial in that situation and others, not just my camping example. What I was trying to get across is I don't think thermals are a necessary day to day thing, particularly if you're going to be spending a lot of time in centrally heated places. Maybe I'm just warm blooded

spouse of scouse

I got that for three years. Almost without exception. "Why did you leave Australia to live here?!". As well as talking about all the things I loved about my new home, I'd sometimes wedge into the conversation that Australia isn't the holy grail that's portrayed on television. As we often say on BE, it's just another first world country with all the benefits and problems of any other. Same as Florida or any other sunny first world location.

yellowroom

either my blood thinned while I was in the US and has yet to recover 5 years back in the U.k, or I’m getting old. But I feel the cold more than I used to. Apart from the menopause related hot flushes in the middle of the night. They never occur when they could be useful, like wet Tuesday nights at the football!

moneypenny20

It wasn't the cold that got to me in the UK, it was the damp and grey that seemed to cover the country between October and March that sucked the life out of me. The feeling that the grey clouds were sitting on my shoulders and pushing me down. The UK in winter when it's very cold but the sky is blue is fantastic, autumn when it's cold and blustery with blue skies is fantastic. Damp grey heavy cloud is shite. No amount of clothing sorts that one out. It made me ill. If, for whatever reason, I have to move back, I honestly don't know how I'd cope.

BEVS

Your thermostat is forever broken. So is mine.

UkWinds5353

Your post is a bit scary for Floridians that think 60 degrees is chilly.
One of the reasons we were thinking of buying a large house was to facilitate enough indoor space for distractions. Essentially making us prisoners in the house during the winters months on those(hopefully) VERY few bone chilling days. But given time we will toughen up, I hope

UkWinds5353

I totally agree with you.
Sometimes the whole perspective of living in a particular place is not considered when looking at life somewhere else. A place like Australia or Florida can often be viewed through the small prism of a music video. But we're not all shaking our tail feathers or gliding across the floor while drinking daiquiris. But full disclosure I've been guilty of the grass is greener mistake also.

Pistolpete2

We have chosen to leave the UK - you know, the political garbage and all that is connected with it - and as we were preparing to leave Dorset, which is particularly mild relative to many parts of the UK in both summer and winter, I had to check that I was right in my overall thinking, because the weather had been so nice this summer in our neck of the woods.

HOWEVER, I had to remind myself that indeed the winters are long and hard, even in Dorset - cold from late September to well into late April and it gets dark at around 4:15 pm come early December. It's all very well loving the beauty of an English summer and associated activities but the winter is a whole different ball-game, so the Algarve is looking very good already, though this is a transit spot for us, at this point in our overall plans.

I have to say that our departure was NOT about the weather though. If we had stayed, we would have taken breaks in winter to ease our bones from time to time. Even here in the Algarve is COLD in January and February, so you need to be much further south at that time of year - the Canaries, Madeira or maybe the Moroccan Atlantic Coast.

I know that you had checked Dorset and thought it quiet but in winter there are areas of micro-climates on the South Coast that can make a nice difference. In Weymouth, we were typically 4-5 degrees C milder than just ten miles inland - similar to the Isle of Wight compared to the Mainland. These differences are particularly noticeable in dead winter, post the Christmas period.

christmasoompa

You were there in August though. Go to London in the middle of January and it'll be very different.

My tourist rage used to really surface in August when I worked in London, why on why do they feel the need to get off public transport and look at a map right there instead of moving to the side? Why do they have to take a photograph in the middle of the pavement instead of letting people past?!? I'm afraid I was a grumpy commuter muttering under my breath at times like that.

Novocastrian

https://weather-averages.co.uk/compa...ewcastle%2C-uk

Just saying...

moneypenny20

You won't be prisoners though. Just because it is generally cold and miserable for some months, life goes on. Very little stops unless you're a outside swimmer and even then weird people continue. As has been said, it's rarely bone chillingly cold - houses are centrally heated, shopping centres, cinemas, museums, schools, offices etc have central heating, Cars have heating. It's no different from living in Florida where you go from air conditioned houses to cars to shops & offices. You (general) acclimatise very quickly, it's really not an issue. I think 16C (60F) is chilly, we have the woodburner going when that happens, but if I'm in the UK in in those temperatures I may be the only one in jeans but it's not cold, it's ok.

It's different.