We have. There seem to be more hot summer days in the south east than here in the south west, and last summer we had cold winds here, even when the sun was shining.

My memories of Victoria summers are certainly of warm. I regularly grew and ripened all kinds of tomatoes outdoors -- with an eye to late blight, of course! We had a grape vine that most years produced ripe grapes, but that depended on the Indian Summer weather.

I suppose it when I think of warm, I think of those over 25 degree, humid days when you only need shorts and a t-shirt. You definitely get a fair number of those days here, but not as many as I'd like and it's definitely confined to summer. It depends where you live as well. Up in Saanich, it's a few degrees warmer than where we are in Fairfield, and it's even cooler in James Bay where we used to live.

The growing season is long though and there's definitely lots of sunshine. Apparently Victoria is drier than Tucson, Arizona in the summer! The seasons are very distinct here and you are pretty much guaranteed a summer, unlike the UK where it's a bit of a lottery. Overall I'd say the climate is really good here, if you don't mind the rain in the winter and cool evenings. Ideally I'd like to be able to sit out in the evenings more, but warm evenings are quite rare where we live.

We're certainly not moving to England for a better climate. We know it will be worse. Hopefully we can make it to Europe enough so it won't be too much of an issue.

Weird - I worked in Alberta for 3 years and am still kicking myself for not having the nerve at the time to follow up on the job/life I (we) could have had; simple fact was my wife would not even consider leaving her family back in Europe, so it was always a non-starter.

Fast-forward 30 years, we are now approaching retirement and are discussing what to do with the rest of our lives. One thing we both agree on, there is nothing that will make us want to remain in the UK.

We do change over time, as does the world around us.

We live in Oak Bay, near to Willows beach. House prices in the last 12 months have gone crazy. Have a look on mls.ca at house prices. Single family homes are going to multiple bids and going for way over assessed value, and over listing prices.

Well, look at it this way: that's 5,400 times you haven't had to clear the snow from your drive.

+1. People who left 30 years ago tend to forget that.

I had to scrape the windscreen one time in January and the memories came flooding back.

Oh, the horror!

Yes. We've been watching it. Apparently some people are cashing in their Vancouver houses and then buying in Victoria.

I hear that some people are commuting from Victoria to Vancouver. I assume they want the very expensive houses. Or can afford them.

OMG - don't remind me - I arrived at Calgary on Cup-Final day in 1985/86 season (never forget, my boss was a Scouser and Liverpool won 3-1 against the Woolybacks), drove to Wainwright, it was a beautiful day. Woke up the next day to drive down to Saskatoon and all the snow in the world had been dumped on my car.