Weather… or not!

“And finally Winter, with its bitin’, whinin’ wind, and all the land will be mantled with snow“

Roy Bean

…or not!

When I announced – during my last year working at The School in London from which I ‘retired’ – that we were moving to Canada, the response that I most frequently encountered was along the lines of Roy Bean’s quote above. Fundamentally, the chief impression of my new homeland was that the winter’s were long and terrible – and that I had better like snow and ice – and, of course, hockey!

Now – I have written plenty since then in these pages in an attempt to dispel this impression – particularly when one is considering the west coast of Canada – and even more particularly when thinking about Victoria. The provincial capital enjoys pretty much the best climate in Canada – including some of the mildest winters. Yes – it does snow – but not a lot more than it does in the south of England.

There is – naturally – a twist. Victoria is also a good place to encounter what one might call ‘Crowded House’ weather – “Four Seasons in One Day”. Here is an example from yesterday:

I shot this little video on my phone from our deck at lunch-time.

Ten minutes later I shot this one:

There is very little snow on the ground this evening, but we are apparently likely to experience further belts tomorrow – and even on Tuesday. For the moment we are just hunkering down and waiting for this weather to do what all weather here does… go somewhere else (leaving us to our normal mild spring climate)!

Roll on that, say I!