CP THE WEATHER RETELL EX.7

I PART.

During the first four days that I spent in England, the sun was shining there. “It is not that bad here,” I said to my fellow correspondents. “The English will look back on these four days for about ten years, —they answered to me. “Do you remember, when there was no rain four days running in the summer of 1958 in June?” Two years later I returned to England again. There had been a blizzard at the Sheremetyevo and the temperature had been 12 degrees below zero. It was + 9 degrees in London and again sunny. “Not bad for February”, I thought, and overlooked the weather. Two days later it started raining, then it was cold and foggy, then it rained again, then it was windy, and cold. And I thought of the British with annoyance: “What makes them live on these soaking wet islands while there are so many dry countries on the Earth…”

II PART.

I used to be sceptical about all the conversations of London fogs. After all, we have fogs too. Therefore I didn’t take the first London fog seriously. «Here is the notorious English fog», I said to my children, and they started jumping and crying with excitement: «Fog, fog…» My wife proved to be more serious: «How shall I go to the shop?» Nevertheless, she went to the shop and even came back. But we had been waiting for her two hours, although the shop was just around the corner.

Fogs stop transport, even railway lines, close down enterprises and kill people. No, not only on the roads. Much more people are killed by «smog» that is fog mixed with smoke and soot from fireplaces and exhaust fumes. The notorious «killer” in 1952 claimed the lives of 435 people, suffering from asthma. Londoners wear gauze bandages on days like these: they turn grey after a quarter of an hour.

Fog brings a lot of trouble. You get sick and tired of the rain and the dumpness. However, a man can get used to anything. You get gradually used to the English weather.

Winter heralds the coming of spring, say the English. And spring is a time of good weather in Britain. It's all in bloom. It blooms in the cities and in the suburbs. Delicate pink cherry blossoms. White apple blossoms.

You should visit the apple orchards in the County of Kent to see a true spring in England. There are signs 'road in blossom' on the highway. You can drive along them, these provincial, winding roads and enjoy the white and pink trees in blossom.

England is lovely in these spring weeks. And the rain spares its beauty. And the sun makes its colours bright.

Yes, the English know where to live after all, you think to yourself, while walking around the white and yellow daffodil-covered lawns of London parks. And then there show up tulips, which you can`t take your eyes off. And then there is summer ahead, the white candles of chestnuts, blooming roses and their delicate phragrance, and lime-tree alleys.

But the rain has lost its patience by the time. It will begin to remind you that these are the British Isles, not the Sahara. The rain will make the country cool, and you won`t even complain of the heat here, even in July. But the rain will make the English foliage even more beautiful.

The English are unlucky with their summer. The sea, which surrounds them from the all sides, and the wide, soft sandy beaches of Cornwall only tease you. You can't always have a swim even on the southernmost of the British Isles, the Isle of Wight. The sea stays cool even in summer. Only physically fit people are brave enough to splash near the shore. Most holiday makers just look at the bathers. September and October is superb in England. Indian summer here is long, sunny, and warm. The grass has become only slightly little less bright. There are a lot of mushrooms in the woods, but the English never pick them up. They only eat champignons.

On nice autumn days, you don't want to think of the approaching winter. Here it's usually snowless, rainy, windy and foggy. They ski only in Scotland. There are only two indoor skating rinks in London. And numerous ponds, rivers and lakes freeze over once in twenty years.

However, there is an advantage about a climate like this. It's cheap. You can do without a fur coat and a warm hat. There is no central heating in nineteen out of every twenty houses.

I did, however, spend an "exceptionally severe" winter in England. In January 1963 the snow in London laid for three weeks. The temperature dropped to -5° C. Nothing of the kind had happened in England for the last 150 years or so. In Russia, we wouldn't even call this frost invigorating. In England, it caused a mess on transport. These three snowy weeks cost the railway lines alone five million pounds sterling. But winters like these occur in England often than once in fifty years.